


My Sweet Affinity

by Chaos_and_Roses



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Law Enforcement, Angst, BAMF Sawada Tsunayoshi, But they're our idiots, Crime Fighting, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Law Enforcement, M/M, Pining, Romance, Slow Burn, Travel, World Travel, badass tsuna, profilers, they're idiots, this'll be fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 51,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24044716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaos_and_Roses/pseuds/Chaos_and_Roses
Summary: Despite his origins, Tsuna is a highly respected profiler and a proud agent of the IOC (The International Office of Criminal Investigation). He has been for almost 4 years. He'd been in some tough spots before. Combine being a profiler with an interesting childhood and there's really no avoiding it. But getting arrested by his own agency isn't ideal.
Relationships: Reborn/Sawada Tsunayoshi
Comments: 248
Kudos: 398
Collections: My hoard of the best and worth a reread of all time, There are no words for this beauty





	1. Prologue: You Forgot My Damn Shoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sirena_sensei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirena_sensei/gifts).



> Hey! This is going to be my first fic! Hopefully, it'll turn out okay. I'll try to update every Wednesday. Also, KHR does not belong to me, it is the property of Akira Amano. And with that, let's get started! Buckle up guys, cause we're in it for the long haul!
> 
> (This fanfic is inspired by Criminal Minds. I may use some plot points from the show, but I'll be making up most of them. Another thing is that most locations will be real although information on them might not be 100% accurate)
> 
> Also, I've decided to gift this work to my wonderful editor/best friend/soulmate congrats. The first of many :)

`Florence, Italy  
February 14, 2012`

Tsuna observed himself in the mirror quietly. His brown hair was even more disheveled than usual, most likely due to the lack of brushing this morning and the following rough treatment he’d endured. His face was blank, carefully drawn into a practiced poker face. His body was relaxed, no obvious tension or nervous fidgeting. Good. If the situation was as bad as he thought it was, he’d need to appear calm.

The mirror was both a blessing and a curse, he decided. On one hand, it took the edge off of the boredom, staring at himself that is.

He hadn’t had a chance to look at his appearance at all recently, considering how busy he’d been. So yes, the four and half hour wait gave him the opportunity to check himself out, and decide that he needed a haircut.

That was the blessing.

The curse, however, was the unnerving certainty that someone was on the other side of that glass. And while that someone was currently invisible to him, he was very much visible to them. That didn’t quite sit well with him.

Tsuna resisted the urge to sigh. This wasn’t turning out to be a good day.

The door clicked open.

“Are you Tsunayoshi Sawada?”

“Yes, sir. That’s me.”

The man who sat down across from him was decidedly not the interrogator he had been expecting. He was old, late 50s, early 60s, well dressed in a tailored gray business suit, and completely lacked the aura of training IOC agents tended to walk around with. Which left the brunet more than a little confused, considering he’d been arrested this morning.

The man smiled at him, “Hello, Tsunayoshi. Do you know why I’m here?”

Tsuna remained silent for a moment, quickly reminding himself to stay calm despite the unforeseen chain of events.

“I do not. Although, I’m more than a little certain that my co-workers breaking into my apartment and arresting me this morning has something to do with it.”

“You would be correct.” The man said with a laugh, “I truly apologize for the rough treatment and the long wait. The situation’s a little delicate at the moment and we didn’t want to arouse suspicion.”

The brunet raised an eyebrow. “If I say you're forgiven, do I learn the reason behind the so-called delicate situation?”

“Indeed, you do.”

“Then my forgiveness is yours.”

“Thank you very much.” The man paused. “Firstly, my name is Timoteo di Vongola.”

Tsuna's eyes widened in shock.

“V-Vongola?” He stuttered out.

“Yes, but you may be more familiar with me as Vongola Nono, the ninth head of the International Office of Criminal Investigation.”

He didn’t need the mirror to know that his poker face was completely gone as he stared at Timoteo, speechless. The expression he was making must’ve been funny, considering Vongola Nono burst into a hilarious fit of laughter.

“Vongola Nono, sir!” He managed, “I am so sorry, I didn’t recognize you! Had I known it was you I’d have never––”

“It’s alright, my boy.” Interrupted Timoteo, leaving Tsuna to fall into mortified silence. The man smiled at him kindly before continuing. “You’re not in trouble. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“The opposite?”

“Yes. I’m here to offer you a promotion.” Nono explained.

Tsuna’s brow furrowed. _But what sort of promotion requires the director to make an appearance? Or warrant a kidnapping..._

“Don’t worry. I’m about to explain.” Nono said, “I’m here personally because the position I’m asking you to fill is newly created by myself and the board.”

“It’s new?”

“Yes. We had begun to notice the number of crimes that remained unsolved. Serial killers, mob hits, terrorists. There are people that we just can’t catch, who keep getting away. We needed something to change that. We started legal work to authorize a new unit. We needed a special team to be able to handle certain important cases.”

The brunet nodded in understanding.

“The situation with your father solidified this belief.”

He tensed, scowling lightly.

Nono smiled sympathetically, “This special team will be working on normal cases like the other profiling units. The difference is that when a high priority case presents itself they will be the go-to unit. They’d also need to be able to understand and then later explain and teach their understanding of the criminal mind on another level–”

“Hold on a minute.” Interrupted Tsuna, “This new unit you're creating, they’d be solving normal cases, and high priority cases?”

Nono simply nodded.

“And they’d be working to improve our understanding of human behavior?”

“That is correct.”

Tsuna stared at him for a moment, “Isn’t that a bit much?”

Nono chuckled amusedly, “Don’t worry, my boy, as far as developing the art of profiling goes, not much would be required of them. Just an annual presentation to certain groups in the IOC explaining the notable cases worked on, how they were solved or how the perpetrator got away. Seem more manageable?”

“A bit.” The brunet agreed with a smile.

“So as I was about to tell you, the Behavioral Analysis Unit will be a team of highly intelligent criminals.”

Tsuna stared at him.

“Are you serious?” He asked faintly.

“Very. Who could understand the unlawful better than lawbreakers themselves? The only issue is the board and I don’t have the time nor the correct abilities to find people who are suitable and monitor their training. We’ve opted to select a leader who will then be responsible for putting together the team, with the proper approval, of course. That person is you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

They stared at each other.

Maybe this isn't such a bad day after all.

“With your background, you have the understanding necessary for this job, but on top of that, we know that we can trust you. And you’re certainly a capable profiler. You’re one of our best agents stationed in our main office. What do you think?”

Tsuna stared at him silently for a moment as a grin crept onto his face.

“I think you should tell me when I start.”


	2. Have You Grown Numb? Pt.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is early! I was planning on waiting until tomorrow, but I got really over-excited so I decided that since it was done I might as well post it.
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.

`Paris, France  
June 23, 2012  
10:38 AM`

Prisons, Tsuna decided, were not pleasant places. At least not this one.

La Santé Prison was a massively intimidating structure smack dab in the middle of Paris. Surrounded by huge stone walls and sealed shut by a large gate. It was enough to make you want nothing to do with the place. So, of course, that was where he was headed.

La Santé didn’t put up any red flags right away. It was kept clean, the buildings were modern and habitable. The issue resided with the punishment they doled out.

Suicide rates in prisons in France were already unusually high, but La Santé was another deal entirely. As a max security facility, they dealt with high numbers of violent inmates, which apparently made it okay to use violence in return. Violence and solitary confinement. Up to 45 days of solitary, to be exact. Good in some cases, but with the already damaged psyche of the people in this prison, it gave way to severely unstable inmates.

But that wasn’t why he was here. As much as the conditions of the prison bothered him, he was there to consult the warden on how to deal with the recent murders of security guards. Two murders within the last week. Concerning. Especially in an establishment like this one.

Tsuna sighed, looking up from his files. He should feel grateful, really. The past two months had been nothing but review training, red tape, and paperwork. 

_More like a living hell._

He’d never been exactly good at sitting at a desk, as reflected by his poor grades in school. Generally, he could deal with it long enough to complete the required paperwork for the cases he’d been involved in, but this went beyond that. And yet he couldn’t find it in himself to regret taking the position now that he’d been granted authority and the details had finally been worked out.

So yes, he was glad he finally out doing something field related if a little disappointed it was only consulting. He needed a team to receive an actual case apparently.  
The grating sound of the metal gates opening made him cringe, quickly bringing him back to reality. In the end, it didn’t matter if he was investigating or consulting, two people were dead and the suspect pool was huge. He needed his head in the game, starting now.

____________________________________________________________________________________

An official from the French Prison Service greeted him the moment he stepped out of the car. He– _Luis Caron_ – shook his hand firmly as he brusquely introduced himself.

“The crime scene is the same as it was when we found it,” Caron told him in French, guiding him towards the main building, “We had to move the body, I hope that won’t be an issue.”

“No, that’s alright. You’ve got people working here, it couldn’t be helped.” Tsuna gave himself an internal pat on the back, relieved that he’d had the foresight to dust off his French on the way over.

Tsuna paused inside the first set of doors to take off his gun and place it in a gun locker. He’d initially been surprised when he learned that he wasn’t allowed to have it with him inside, but it did make sense.

The brunet turned to Caron, “Do you mind taking me to where the body was found first?”

The official nodded, “Of course, follow me.”

He led Tsuna through various hallways and sections of the prison and eventually came to a stop in front of one of the prison’s utility rooms. Tsuna hummed thoughtfully as he observed the small closet.

It was fairly isolated, away from any visible security cameras.

“This prison has Blocks A through D, correct?”

“That’s right, we’re in C Block right now.” Caron told him.

“I see,” Tsuna paused, “How do you decide which Block a prisoner is assigned to?”

“It has to do with the severity of their crimes and what kind of danger they present. A Block is for the worst of the worst, most of those guys are in here for life, at least. B Block is for people who still pose a significant threat, but the crimes they’ve been convicted of are generally less severe. C Block is for people who don’t represent as much of a threat as A and B Block, but were involved with some pretty dangerous people or things. And D Block is for the rest of them, the run of the mill stuff.”

“And we’re in C Block, right now?”

“That’s right.”

Tsuna stepped in the cramped walk-in closet. It was mostly filled with cleaning supplies, and other useful materials like toilet paper, a plunger, etc.

He could see where the body had been stashed. The paper towel rolls on the top shelf had been dislodged and had fallen all over the floor. That and there was dried blood on everything below it.

“Did the other murder also happen in C Block?” Asked the brunet.

“It did, but it was on the other side, closer to B Block.”

Tsuna nodded, “Alright, can you take me to where the bodies are being held?”

Caron looked surprised, “Already? I thought you’d need more time here.”

“I might come back later. I just needed to see it before it’s cleaned up. It’s also pretty tame as far as crime scenes go, nothing too weird.”

“I see.”

They made their way towards the infirmary, near the prison cafeteria.

“Can I ask what you got from the crime scene?”

Tsuna smiled at Caron, “Sure you can, I’m here to consult, not commandeer the investigation.”

Caron returned his smile, nodding in understanding.

“I wanted to know where the closet was located. It was isolated with no visible security cameras insight. Not only that, but the unsub put the victim on the top shelf. Both suggest he was trying to keep the body from being immediately discovered. Now, if he put it there for a reason or it was just convenient, I don’t know.”

“He?”

“Ah, yes. The fact that the unsub needed to be strong enough to lift the victim onto the top shelf, among other things strongly suggests a male. And, don’t get me wrong, I love women, it’s just extremely unlikely.” Tsuna paused, “Not that I would want the unsub to be a woman because I love women. I just– I mean– That isn’t what I meant!”

Caron just laughed at him as he ran a hand over his face.

“I knew what you meant. Here we are.”

The infirmary was large, which was to be expected considering the size of the prison. There were no beds in the room since prisoners were expected to get their wounds treated and return to their cells. There were quite a lot of chairs though, and plenty of cupboards and equipment to take up the remaining space.

“Can I help you?”

Tsuna blinked at the man staring up at him from his desk.

“Yes. I’m SSA Sawada from the IOC. I’m here to see the bodies of both victims.”

The man nodded and stood, “Of course. I’m Dr. Agard, right this way please.”

“Sawada,” Caron spoke up before he could follow the doctor. “I’m going to go back to my office. I trust you won’t be needing more help getting around?”

“No. I’ll come to get you if I need anything else. Thank you for your help.”

Caron offered him a small nod and left. The brunet turned his attention back towards Dr. Agard.

“Sorry, please continue.”

He simply motioned for Tsuna to follow and made his way into a back room. He unlatched the doors on the freezer and rolled out the bodies.

“So here we have Andre Laurent and Charles Dejardin. Both were security guards working here.”

“I see,” Tsuna said, “Cause of death?”

“Blunt force trauma to the head. Looks like they got hit with a lead pipe or something similar. Probably killed them instantly. I don’t know for sure though, I’m no coroner, we don’t have one here.”

“Were there any other injuries?”

“None.”

Tsuna nodded thoughtfully, “Do you know where the two of them were assigned?”

“Let me see. I have their files in the other room.”

The doctor quickly made his way to his desk. The brunet inspected the twin wounds on Laurent and Dejardin’s heads. Laurent’s was on his left temple, but Dejardin’s was on his right side, closer to the back of his head. Tsuna frowned, he’d almost believe these were two accidents, casualties of random bar fights if it hadn’t been for their location.

“Alright, here they are.”

He turned to look at Dr. Agard expectantly.

“It says here that Laurent worked in D Block, and Dejardin worked in B Block.”

Tsuna sighed, “I see, thank you.”  


____________________________________________________________________________________

“The first thing you’ll need to do is make a list of every male prisoner locked up here that’s been convicted of a violent crime. And trust me, I do know that that’s a lot of people, but we need to interview all of them anyways.”

The Supervisory Correctional Officer, Leroy Fortier nodded solemnly before turning to the Senior Officers in the room. 

“You ten’ll be in charge of the interviews. For now, one of you let Berger know to compile that list and go to lunch. You’ll be expected to start as soon as you’re done eating.”

“Yes, sir!”

Tsuna observed him silently. He was an interesting man, terse with his superiors, but obviously serious about his job, evident in the way he handled his men.

“So I was informed that neither crime scene was within range of security cameras.” He began, “Is that correct?”

“It is.” Fortier told him bluntly.

“Seems a bit lacking doesn’t it? The security system that’s not directly related to keeping the prisoners from escaping needs to be upgraded regularly as well, don’t you think?”

“I’m aware. I keep trying to–” Fortier cut himself off, taking a deep breath, “Nevermind. You’re right.”

Tsuna blinked, taken aback, “No, come on. What were you going to say? You can level with me, ok?”

Fortier looked at him fiercely, “You want me to level with you? I’ll level with you. This place is run by a bunch of bureaucratic government officials who’ve no idea what they’re dealing with. Caron’s a good man, I’ll give him that, but he doesn’t understand the level of security this place needs to uphold. Our security system’s been suffering from it in recent years. I requested camera upgrades months ago, Caron doesn’t find it necessary.”

A long silence stretched between them.

“I… see. That is problematic.”

Fortier snorted, “Understatement.”

Tsuna nodded, “I’ll see what I can do later on. For now, do you mind if I sit in and assist with the interviews?”

Fortier suddenly looked wary.

“I thought you were only here to consult?”

“I am.” The brunet said hurriedly, “But if I’m there to study the behavior of some of the prisoners and offer some of my own questions based on what I see, we may get more answers.”

The officer gave a hesitant nod, “Alright.”

“Great. I’ll go check on the progress of that list. Are the files digital here?”

“Yeah. It’d be an awful lot of inmates to keep track of if they weren’t”

Tsuna nodded, “Fair enough. I’ll be going, then.”

“Hold on,” Fortier stopped him.

“Yes?”

“You don’t know where you’re going.”

Tsuna froze, “Oh… right.”

Fortier made his way to the door and held it open, “I’ll show you.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Your French is very good.” One of the officers from earlier commented, smiling.

They’d brought him to the cafeteria and insisted on eating with him after they’d finished compiling the list of prisoners.

The brunet blinked, “Thank you. It’s nothing outstanding, but it’s passable because of how similar it is to Italian.”

The man’s grin widened as he stuck out his hand across the table, “I’m Valentin Hillier, nice to meet you.”

Tsuna returned his smile full force, “Hi, I’m Tsunayoshi Sawada.”

“Well Sawada, it looks like you’ll be with me for the interviews.” Hillier told him, almost conspiratorially.

“Great. When do we start?”

“Right about now. If you’re done eating, that is.”

Tsuna glanced down at the mediocre mystery meat on his plate.

“Yeah, I think I’m done.”

Hillier laughed as he stood up to throw away the rest of the food. He handed the plate and silverware to one of the kitchen staff, quickly saying his thanks.

The brunet jogged over to the officer waiting for him by the door.

“We’ve got room B-32, they’ve already got the first guy in there for us.”

“Ok. And are we going through the list in any particular order?”

“Yeah, we split it up amongst the ten of us, as even as we could get it. I think we have a few extra since you’re with me. We’ll start with the guys from A Block since there are fewer of them.”

“Alright, sounds good to me.”

They stopped in front of room B-03 as Hillier pulled out a key. He unlocked it and swung the door open.

Tsuna stiffened.

Because right there, sitting at the table.

Was the Greatest Hitman, Reborn.


	3. Have You Grown Numb? Pt.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early again!!! Success. You have no idea how excited and hyper I get every Tuesday. This week and last week I literally could not wait until Wednesday to put these chapters up (it also helped that I managed to be done ahead of time). Heads up, from now on there's probably going to be a bit of cursing in this fic. Nothing too over the top unless they're in a bad situation. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.

`Paris, France`  
June 23, 2012  
12:35 PM 

Tsuna found himself observing Reborn closely as Hillier proceeded with his interview. The moment he’d caught sight of the hitman his blood had run cold, thoughts stuttering to a stop in instant recognition.

_Why is he here?_

Even now, minutes afterwards, Tsuna fought to keep his breath steady. Struggling to stay calm despite the cold pit of irrational terror in his gut. 

Reborn was locked up, arms and legs chained tightly to the table, immobile. He was safe. Hypothetically. That knowledge didn’t stop the unwavering certainty that those binds wouldn’t even slow the hitman down, should he decide to escape.

Stories of Reborn were spoken only under the protection of the sunlight. He was feared by everyone, but known to no one. No one knew where he’d come from, when he’d surfaced in the underground, or even how he appeared. 

They said he could complete any task, no matter how impossible. People called him the Grim Reaper, the Devil’s Right Hand, saying that his abilities far surpassed those of any human. No one spoke ill of him, any talk of the man had been brought down to a fearfully awed hush by years of inconceivable achievement. 

They said men considered to be untouchable were easily brought to their knees in his presence, scrambling to execute his will.

There were stories of Reborn as a child. A prodigy like no other in the art of assassination, surpassing each and every one of his peers. 

The stories disagreed, many contradicting one another. But there was one thing that they all agreed on, and that was his skill. Perfect. Monstrous. The Greatest. 

And despite the number of dangerous hitmen in the world, he was unmatched in the fear he cultivated. His reputation unequaled.

A glance at Hillier confirmed what Tsuna already knew, the guards had no idea who they were dealing with. No one outside the Mafia could truly understand. To anyone who didn’t know better, Reborn was a myth. The fear and paranoia of those living in the shadows personified.

Tsuna knew better.

“No.” The brunet’s eyes snapped up, brought out of his daze by the prisoner’s deep baritone. It was the first word he’d spoken since their arrival.

And Tsuna had no idea what the question had been.

“Was there any talk of the killings before or after the fact that you were aware of?” Hillier asked.

“No, there was not.”

Right. He was here to do his job, not to hyperventilate over the man who’d fueled his nightmares as a child. He’d been astonished when his father had shown him a picture and he’d discovered Reborn was around his age. As well as more than a little embarrassed (but not too embarrassed, because no matter how young he was his inarguable skill could not be ignored).

“Did you or any prisoner from A Block have contact with either victim?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no.”

“Out of curiosity, what’s the typical schedule for someone in A Block?” Tsuna cut in.

Reborn turned to look at him for the first time. Tsuna held his breath as the hitman’s dark eyes scrutinized him. 

No matter how terrifying he was, the brunet wouldn’t deny the man was incredibly attractive. Unfairly so, actually. Like, ten out of ten would bang if they met at a club (Thank God they’d never met at a club. Imagine waking up next to someone considered to be a literal demon by the entirety of the underground, talk about nightmare fuel).

“We get two hours outside in the courtyard. We have no contact with the other prisoners, we eat in our cells and our time outdoors is isolated from the other Blocks.”

Tsuna nodded, regaining confidence, “Are you brought to shower at a separate time, or are you expected to clean up before returning from the courtyard?”

“We’re given fifteen minutes in the washroom before we return from the courtyard.”

“Alright. And you spend the rest of the day in your cells?”

Reborn hummed in acknowledgment, “Unless you’re put in solitary.”

Tsuna nodded, and glanced at Hillier, motioning for him to proceed.

The interview went by quickly after that, and soon enough they were done for the day. They’d managed 60 of their allotted 110 interviews.

_Why is Reborn here?_

The question stuck with him for the rest of the day, even as Hillier was locking up the interrogation room and bidding him a good night.

Tsuna frowned, deep in thought. It was late, maybe 8 or 9 o’clock, but it wasn’t lights out yet. He still had time to talk to the hitman.

The brunet nodded, mind made up, as he took off to A Block. Hopefully talking to Reborn could put him at ease because right now, the hitman’s presence was setting off all sorts of alarm bells in his head.

____________________________________________________________________________________

A Block was structured differently than the other sections. The number of prisoners here was a fraction of the other Blocks.

The room was large, built in a circle. The cells lined the walls, but unlike the rest of the prison, they were fully sealed off with glass. They also clearly opened upwards instead of swinging open.

Apparently the inmates in A Block got their own cells since the guards were worried about them murdering each other during a change in shift.

The guard at the door recognized him and let him through.

_Well, that was easy._

Once he was inside he spotted Reborn. He was one of the only prisoners who wasn’t standing or roaming around his cell like a trapped animal. Instead, he was lounging gracefully on his cot (looking far more comfortable than he ought to considering how horrible those things were), reading a book.

_He can’t even have the decency to look out of place._

Tsuna huffed. Now he had to go talk to him. Great.

Reborn looked up as the brunet came to a stop in front of his cell. 

The hitman blinked at him. “Can I help you?”

“Why are you here?” Tsuna responded in Italian.

Reborn’s eyebrows shot up. He set his book down, giving him his full attention.

“What do you mean?” The raven asked, no longer in French.

“You know what I mean. Why are you here?”

Reborn stood, stepping closer to the glass.

“I’m here because I’m a criminal, and I broke the law. Is that what you want to hear?”

Tsuna furrowed his brow, frustrated.

“No,” He sighed, massaging his forehead, “This is not about what I _want_ to hear. I want to know how, or why, you, _Reborn_ , ended up in jail.”

Reborn’s expression was unreadable.

“I got caught.”

Tsuna glared at him, “Why did you turn yourself in?”

“Are you deaf? I just told you that I got caught.”

“I don’t believe you.”

A long silence stretched between them. The way Reborn was staring at him was unnerving. Almost like he could see right through him.

“Well,” Reborn spoke again, interrupting his thoughts. “I don’t need you to believe me.”

The hitman turned on his heel and sat back down.

“See you around,” He said, in French again, as he picked up the book, making it clear their conversation was over.

Tsuna stood there for a moment, then turned to leave. He ground his teeth in frustration. This wasn’t working out, he had a wary Supervisory Officer to deal with, a violent hitman who was unwilling to talk to him, and a set of murders that he hadn’t had a chance to look over yet. _Lovely._

He stopped short, eyes falling on the familiar name tag by the door. 

_Gabriel Berger. Their Tech. Analyst._

Tsuna hesitated for a moment. Berger had been extremely forthcoming about all the details of the list of inmates he’d compiled earlier, he’d even explained a bit of their security system. Still, what he wanted to ask seemed a bit implausible, and if it got back to Fortier he had a feeling the officer would have an even harder time trusting him.

The brunet stepped forward and knocked on the door lightly. It swung open almost instantaneously.

Berger's face lit up in an enthusiastic smile when he saw him.

“Sawada!” He exclaimed, “Didn’t expect to see you back so soon! What can I do for you?”

The corners of Tsuna’s mouth tugged up into a smile. It was impossible for the analyst’s energy not to buoy his mood.

“I was wondering if you could pull some security camera footage for me?”

Berger nodded, “I can, but weren’t you only supposed to be here during the day?”

Tsuna froze, “Oh shit! I completely forgot about that!”

_Fuck. God damn it! I hate consulting!_

The analyst laughed, “Don’t worry, I can put the video footage on a hard drive and you can take it with you. That alright?”

“That–” Tsuna stared at him, “That would be amazing! Is that okay? Are you allowed to do that?”

“Not really.” The analyst turned to sit back down at his desk, “But since you’re a part of the investigation and you work for the IOC, you’re _technically_ of higher authority in this case. Even if you’re only consulting.”

Berger logged in to his computer quickly, then turned to offer him a mischievous smile.

“Plus, I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“I–No, I… I mean, I won’t. Tell, that is…” The brunet trailed off. “But why? It’s not that I’m ungrateful, the opposite actually, but I just don’t understand why you’d do this for me. You could get in a lot of trouble if Fortier ever found out.”

Berger stopped typing for a moment and looked him in the eye.

“The thing is… investigations tend to go really quick around here. And sometimes I’m not sure they’re done entirely well. I mean, they’re good guys, but they’re out there all day, surrounded by criminals, and I think at some point they stopped thinking it mattered.”

“They stopped thinking what mattered?” Tsuna asked.

“Who took the fall. Like, they’re all criminals anyways, so what does it matter if the one who gets in trouble didn’t break the rules? That kind of thinking, you know?”

Tsuna thought about it for a moment.

“I suppose that makes sense.”

Berger nodded, “Yeah, and… I just want it done well this time. And you’re here, so I’m giving you the opportunity.”

Tsuna smiled at him again, “Thanks, Gabriel, I appreciate it. I’ll do my best.”

Berger just grinned at him and handed over a hard drive.

“Yeah, I figured. This is the footage from the A Block cameras around the times of the murders. Saw you over there just now, figured it was what you needed.”

Tsuna grinned at him. “You’re good, if you ever want to work for the IOC let me know, I’ll hook you up.” He told him teasingly.

Berger just laughed, shooing him out of the office.

“Yeah, yeah. Get lost before you get in trouble!”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna pulled a blanket around himself as he powered on his computer. He was sitting on the lumpy couch in his hotel room, legs tucked underneath him as he prepared himself to go through A Block’s security footage.

It wasn’t particularly cold, but he’d been delighted to see the blanket anyways. It was oddly comforting to have its weight around his shoulders (also the air conditioning decided to kick into overdrive at around 10, and then it actually was cold).

He sighed. Although he was ardently hoping that Reborn wasn’t involved with the murders, he also couldn’t find another way to rationalize the hitman’s presence.

Granted, La Santé was well-known for being practically inescapable, but surely that wouldn’t stop the man. He was a legend, for God’s sake.

Tsuna plugged in the hard drive and opened the files.

_If it’s him, we’re all screwed._

He checked his file for Laurent’s approximate time of death.

11:00 PM - 12:00 AM.

He sped up the video and watched carefully. Reborn was sleeping at the start of the video and stayed that way for the entirety.

Tsuna closed that tab and pulled up another.

Dejardin’s time of death was 2:00 AM - 4:00 AM two days later.

Tsuna started the video.

Again, the hitman stayed put for almost the entire video. He stood up once, to stretch, but stayed in plain view of the camera.

Tsuna closed his computer and gave a sigh of relief.

It wasn’t him.


	4. Have You Grown Numb? Pt.3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Made it on time!!! Jeez, you guys should've seen me, I was really busy this week so I completely forgot about today and panicked when I realized I hadn't put this chapter up yet. Luckily I had already written it, but I didn't have time to send it to my beta reader, so apologies if it's a little rough.
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.

`Paris, France`  
`June 24, 2012`  
`6:03 AM`

Tsuna got dressed quickly, running a hand through his hair in a half-hearted attempt to tame it. He pulled on his shoes, grabbed his key card, and was out the door in a matter of seconds.

He had awakened to the shrill ringing of his phone and Fortier had effectively explained to him that he needed to get to the prison immediately because there had been another murder.

Tsuna had sleepily informed him that he’d deliver the profile after checking out the crime scene. To which he was assured that all the Senior Officers would be present upon his arrival.

Hopefully, they caught this guy soon.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna took in the scene in front of him impassively.

“Who is he?” He asked Fortier.

“A prisoner from D Block. Aleron Couture.”

Tsuna hummed thoughtfully, “Why was he in C Block?”

“There are various opportunities in place here. Privileges afforded for good behavior, mostly to prisoners in D Block because they hold the least amount of risk. Basically they are given a job, it gives them something productive to do with their time, and helps the prison run.”

Tsuna turned to look at him, “What jobs? And how many people have these privileges?”

“Cooking, serving at mealtimes, working in the library, delivering food to A Block and solitary, laundry, to name a few. The prison has around 1,500 inmates at the moment, and around 40% of those have these privileges.”

The brunet crouched down beside Couture’s body. He’d been found in the inmates’ washroom early this morning.

This was different from the other victims. There was the obvious difference; him being a prisoner. But there were other physical inconsistencies. Laurent and Dejardin were both well-built, tall, late 20s. Couture was none of that, early 50s, shorter, unfit.

“What was his job?”

“Berger said he delivered food to both A Block and the prisoners in solitary in the evening.”

“Alright,” Tsuna nodded, standing up, “I’m ready to deliver the profile. I want Berger there too, he’ll be able to refine our list of prisoners.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Now that we’re all here I’ll start.” Tsuna glanced around the room, “Yesterday I gave vague parameters, today I’ll give specific descriptions of who I think you’re looking for. Hopefully, we’ll be able to eliminate quite a few people from our list.”

Berger whipped out a notepad, and a pencil, looking at Tsuna expectantly.

“We’re looking for a man–”

“Excuse me.”

Tsuna stared at Fortier blankly.

_He couldn’t wait? I literally haven’t said anything he didn’t already know._

“Yes?”

“I wondered about this yesterday, but how do you know they’re male?”

“Ah, well as a profiler I take a lot of things into account when I look at a crime scene. We normally start from a completely blank slate and then form an opinion based off of statistics and evidence.” Tsuna paused, “Around 70% of convicted criminals are male, 30% are female. In addition, we see lots of particular trends with female offenders, such as water burials, or poison. Because of this we typically assume the unsub is male unless we see something that suggests otherwise. Does that make sense?”

Fortier nodded hesitantly, “Yes, but what about this case specifically?”

“Well, they were all killed with blunt force trauma to the head, a predominantly male method of killing as opposed to the more calculated techniques of female killers. Another thing is that both the first victims were well-built adult males and they were both lifted up high. I’m not saying that a woman wouldn’t be capable of such a feat, but it’s unlikely. And finally, the disposal methods were unorganized, shoved in a closet or left in a washroom, whereas female killers are usually more intentional in placement or more thorough in hiding their victims.”

His explanations were met with silence. He raised an eyebrow.

“May I continue with the profile?”

Fortier nodded.

“Good. As I was saying, we’re looking male, most likely in his 20s, maybe early 30s. He’s strong, strong enough to lift the victims up high. It’s unlikely that he’s working with a group due to the regimented environment, but it’s not an impossibility. He’s one of the working prisoners, he has a job that allows him the freedom to move around. So distribution of food, distribution of clean laundry, anything like that that allows him to move between Blocks. Berger, are you keeping up?”

The analyst glanced up from his notepad to give him a quick nod before continuing to scribble down the new search parameters.

“Alright then, I’ll keep going. The last victim showed me that he’s not killing surrogates for someone who enraged him, and the inconsistencies of the killing blows as well as the lack of other injuries show me that he’s not fulfilling a fantasy by committing these murders. In fact, I believe he’s only committing these murders out of necessity.”

“Necessity?” Repeated one of the Senior Officers, glancing around the room nervously.

“Yes. The victims either learned something they weren’t supposed to and were silenced, or he’s been planning something and they got in the way.”

“What sort of plan?” Questioned Fortier.

“It could be anything. More privileges, more respect among inmates, special treatment from guards. Although, I doubt it’s an escape plan.”

The Senior Officers all exchanged glances save for the one who’d spoken up earlier who was staring resolutely down at his feet. Berger wrote furiously in his notepad.

“Anything else?” Fortier asked.

Tsuna nodded, “One more thing. The unsub did not want to kill the victims, he didn’t want to make a statement, he was simply eliminating what he perceived as a threat. As shown by his attempts to hide the bodies he will not be taking credit for these kills. In fact, the stress of what he’s done may start to weigh on him and he may start acting erratically and impulsively. Keep that in mind when you’re interviewing the remaining prisoners on the list.”

Fortier stepped up beside him.

“Make your morning rounds and check in with your people while Berger reviews the list of prisoners from yesterday.”

As the Senior Officers and Fortier filed out of the conference room Tsuna turned to follow Berger to his office, there were some things he needed to check on.

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Hey, Berger.”

Berger jumped, “Sawada!”

Tsuna offered a reassuring smile, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The analyst blinked, “No, not at all. I’m just setting the new search parameters we discussed. Was there anything else you wanted me to do?”

“Actually yes. If you wouldn’t mind. It can wait until you’re done with the list though.”

Berger nodded and turned back towards his computer. Tsuna shut the office door behind him and took a seat in one of the office’s empty chairs, waiting silently.

After some time Berger stopped typing and pushed away from his desk to face Tsuna.

“The list is considerably shorter, and I sent the new file to the computer in the main office. It’s where they receive their assignments.”

“Good. I was actually wondering if you could pull the last victim’s schedule for yesterday. I want to see where he would've been last.”

Berger hummed in acknowledgment as he typed a few things on the computer.

“Luckily for us, a guard checks to make sure everyone got their food after the inmates deliver it. So we can tell how far he made it.”

The analyst pulled up the schedule and scrolled to the 23rd.

“It looks like he finished his rounds. The last place he was supposed to go to was solitary.”

_Solitary, huh?_

“Okay… Can you pull up a list of anyone who’s been in solitary for the past 6 weeks and cross-check those people with the parameters from the other list?”

“Sure, but 6 weeks?”

“Yes,” Confirmed Tsuna, “It could’ve just been a convenient place to ambush Couture. The unsub would’ve known where Couture was going to be if he’d been in solitary recently. Unless the schedules change?”

Berger shook his head, “No. You're assigned a weekly schedule. Each day may differ from the next, but those weekly schedules stay the same.”

The analyst quickly got to work, leaving Tsuna to wait in silence once again.

“Okay, I applied the– huh…”

Tsuna stared at him, “What?”

“I was going to say I applied the parameters, but there’s this guy who's not in the system after his time in solitary. Josue Charpentier. Hold on, let me pull his file.”

Berger searched for it quickly. He frowned at his computer.

“This is really weird.”

Tsuna’s brow furrowed, “Why? What’s weird about it?”

“It says that he was transferred to another prison in the area immediately after getting out of solitary. But there was no transfer request put in or any sort of process beforehand. Only the report after the fact.”

“Wait, but aren’t prison transfers from La Santé supposed to be super complicated?” Tsuna asked, confused.

“Yeah, inmates are supposed to go through a screening. Basically someone goes through their file to make sure they haven’t gotten into any trouble a year prior to the transfer, there also has to be a valid reason for the transfer. But I don’t see any of that here. In fact, Charpentier shouldn’t have even passed the screening, he’d been getting into fights every week for months, that’s why he was in solitary.”

The brunet frowned thoughtfully.

“He got into fights? Does the file say who he got into fights with?”

“No,” Berger read a few more lines of the file, “None of his fights were witnessed by a guard apparently, there are only records of his injuries from the infirmary… Oh! Here’s another thing, he was an inmate here for 7 months, and until 3 months ago his behavior record was perfect, not a single mark against him. He wasn’t even here for a violent crime, only theft. He was so good that he worked at the library, only the best behaved inmates are allowed to work there, it’s a real privilege here.”

“What the hell?”

Berger turned to face Tsuna again, wide-eyed.

“What does this mean?” He asked.

Tsuna shook his head, “I’m not sure, yet.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Solitary was downstairs. It was practically a Block on its own since it was isolated from everything else. It wasn’t massive, but there were a few twists and turns down here that could potentially aid an ambush.

Tsuna made his way towards Charpentier’s cell which was currently empty. According to Berger, it hadn’t been occupied since his transfer.

The brunet stepped inside, quickly taking stock of the room. Nothing immediately jumped out as wrong or strange, but that didn’t mean there was nothing here.

He went through the bed, taking off the covers, checking under the mattress and under the frame. Nothing. There was no other furniture in the room.

Frowning, Tsuna made his way back to the door. He observed it with a critical eye.

He was just about sigh in defeat when he froze, eyes drawn to one of the corners closer to the floor. He crouched down, squinting.

_Is that blood?_

It was.

A lot of it.

The stain covered a good portion of the part of the door that’d be pressed against the wall if the door was shut. It looked like someone had cracked their head open on the corner of the door.

_For this to happen the door would’ve had to be open._

Had Charpentier died here? That would explain the strange lack of lead up to his transfer. But it wouldn’t explain why he wasn’t listed as dead.

_Unless it wasn’t an accident._

What sort of prisoner would’ve been able to kill him outside of his solitary cell? He should’ve been safe in there no one could’ve–

_It could’ve been one of the guards._

Tsuna’s breath caught. He should’ve considered that from the beginning. Of course one of the guards could’ve done it. He hadn’t even thought about it because it wasn’t his case, he was supposed to be helping the guards find who did this, but what if it was them? If so, who was involved?

Now that I think about it there was one of the Senior Officers who was really nervous earlier. He was nervous around the others at lunch yesterday too.

____________________________________________________________________________________

The man in front of him fidgeted under his intense gaze.

“What’s your name?” Tsuna finally asked.

“Victor Segal.”

“Segal. I’m glad I caught you before you started your interrogations. There are some things I want to ask you.”

If possible the man seemed to get even more anxious.

“A-About what?” His hands were shaking.

“The murders. What do you know?” Tsuna asked bluntly.

“W-What? I-I d-don’t know anything! Nothing! I swear!”

“I don’t believe you.”

Segal froze, the color draining from his face.

“You’re nervous. That much is obvious, but the thing is you’ve been anxious since yesterday. Every interaction with your colleagues and me since I arrived has been full of tension for you. Why?”

Segal gaped at him, seemingly speechless for a moment.

“I– I didn’t do it!”

Tsuna observed him quietly. He had looked the brunet in the eye when saying that. There was genuine fear in his eyes, not nerves. Tsuna scowled.

“I believe you. But I think you know who did. You need to be honest with me.”

Segal was shaking his head fiercely, taking a step back as if he was going to run.

Tsuna stepped forward and caught the front of the guard’s shirt, forcing him to stay in place.

He spoke to him in a firm whisper, “Segal. Listen to me. Whoever did this is a _murderer_. This is a prison, a place for punishing people who’ve done wrong not for letting more crimes go unpunished. I know you don’t want this to go unpunished, I think you know that this is wrong. I don’t know what this person told you, but whatever it is they can’t hurt you. They won’t be able to hurt anyone if you just tell me who it is.”

Segal stared at him, face pale, eyes impossibly wide.

“He said he’d hurt my daughter. My little girl.”

“He won’t hurt her. I promise you I won’t let him.”

Segal nodded, a tear falling down his cheek. He leaned a little closer, speaking in a broken whisper, “It’s Fortier and the other Senior Officers. Both Laurent and Dejardin were Senior Officers before me, I’m one of the replacements. They found out that the others were forcing prisoners to fight each other in a sort of fighting ring by the solitary cells. One of the prisoners died and they were both going to report it, but Fortier got to them first. I’m not sure what happened with the last guy, but he must have stumbled on the fights somehow.”

Tsuna released him and nodded.

“Okay. You did the right thing. I’ll take care of this, they won’t hurt anybody ever again.”

Segal released a shaky breath and practically ran away from him towards his interrogation room.

Tsuna pulled out his phone and dialed the local police chief’s number.

This had continued long enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okie! From the next chapter onwards we'll be seeing a lot more of Reborn, so hooray for that! (^_^)


	5. The Man of Myth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok guys, so from now on I'm gonna try to update on Saturday _and_ Wednesday. So, here's chapter 4!!! Please enjoy!
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.

`Paris, France  
June 26, 2012  
12:03 PM`

The prison seemed a lot quieter. Empty, almost. Which was, quite frankly, ridiculous considering that the only people missing were the Senior Officers. Still, the place seemed to be brighter somehow.

Tsuna made his way through the empty hall towards Berger’s office. It was strange to be back at the prison after what had happened. After Segal told him everything and he’d gotten ahold of the police chief they’d taken action immediately.

Tsuna quickly informed Caron of the situation and they’d gone outside to greet the swarm of police cars rolling through the gates. The brunet collected his gun from his locker and they went to track down Fortier and retrieve the Senior Officers from the interrogation rooms.

They were arrested, luckily without too much of a fight. The multitude of guns trained on them made things easier, especially since they were unarmed. All in all it was resolved fairly smoothly.

Segal was taken back to his family and placed on temporary leave, although he was supposed to return in a week or two. All was well.

But there was one more thing he needed to do before leaving.

He stopped, pausing for a moment as he glanced up at the B-03 tag on top of the door.

_Is this really a good idea?_

Everything he’d learned as a kid told him no, this was very much not a good idea. But the file he’d stayed up reading last night told a different story. Hopefully this conversation would shed some light on the subject.

Tsuna stepped into the interrogation room, meeting Reborn’s dark eyes confidently. He walked up to the table and sat down. He placed the file he’d been holding between them.

There was a moment of silence before Tsuna finally spoke, “Hello, Reborn.”

Reborn’s eyebrow quirked up, “No Italian?”

“Doesn’t matter, no one’s listening anyway.” He said, gesturing towards the disabled security camera behind him.

Reborn’s eyes flickered towards it quickly.

“Why?”

_Italian. Alright._

“Because this is a private conversation. I’m not interested in your answers being recorded because the people reading them wouldn’t understand anyway.”

The hitman frowned at him but said nothing.

Tsuna continued, “Why are you here?”

Reborn furrowed his brow, “This again? I told you I–”

“No, stop. If you're just going to repeat that half-assed excuse then you’re better off saying nothing. I know who you are, Reborn. No one here understands, but I do. I grew up hearing about you. I grew up _fearing_ you. So don’t sit there and tell me you’re here because you got caught.”

Reborn studied him, “Who are you?”

Tsuna huffed, but reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a picture, handing it to him begrudgingly.

Reborn paused, staring at the photo for a moment then glancing back up at the brunet.

“Iemitsu?”

“My father.”

The hitman sat back in his chair.

“We didn’t exactly see eye to eye,” Tsuna said, “But he raised me, and taught me everything I know, so I still carry that around.”

Reborn’s gaze dropped back down to the picture before he placed it on the table and slid it back towards him.

“You’re Mafia,” He stated.

“I was,” Tsuna paused. “Not anymore. I work for the IOC now.”

The hitman lifted an elegant eyebrow. “How exactly does that work?”

Tsuna snorted. “Not easily.” They sat in a tense silence for a few moments. “You’re good at changing the subject.”

“I try.”

“Now answer the question.”

Reborn sighed, “You don’t give up do you? Why can’t you just leave it be?”

Tsuna frowned, eyeing him carefully. In that moment, with his shoulders slumped and limbs chained, he looked so tired. He looked nothing like the hitman everyone had come to fear.

“Look, Reborn, there’s no way these people took you against your will. Even if, by some bloody miracle you managed to fuck up bad enough to end up here, you would’ve been gone within the first 24 hours. I need you to explain to me why you’re here.”

Reborn wasn’t looking at him when he hoarsely declared, “I deserve it.”

Tsuna froze, staring at him.

“I deserve to be here,” The hitman turned his dark eyes back towards Tsuna, “I’m tired, and bloody, and guilty, and I need to be locked up. I can’t keep doing what I was doing. Fuck, I never wanted to do it in the first place, but either way I need to atone.”

The room plunged into silence. Tsuna swallowed, nervously.

_I can’t believe I’m about to do this._

“You know there are better ways to make up for what you’ve done than to rot in prison.”

Reborn laughed bitterly, “Oh, really. How do you suggest I do that?”

Tsuna pursed his lips, and flipped open the folder on the table, turning it so that Reborn could read it.

“This is a list of every confirmed kill you’ve ever made.”

The hitman studied the papers in front of him.

“It’s long,” He commented.

“It is.” Tsuna agreed, “It’s also surprising.”

Reborn said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

“I’ve looked at every single one of these names, Reborn, and each of them is a criminal. Every one of them is either a member of the Mafia, part of some sort of crime ring, or a contract killer.”

“So?”

“So, I think it’s purposeful. I think you avoided killing the innocent or civilians. If you were gonna get your hands dirty you might as well make the world a better place, right?”

When Reborn didn’t speak he continued, looking the hitman dead in the eye, “My guess is that you were forced into the Mafia as a kid. Maybe it was a parent who was involved first, or maybe you were sold into it. Either way, it’s not like you had much of a choice.”

They held eye contact.

Tsuna cleared his throat, “How’d I do?”

“You have some interesting theories.”

“I see,” Tsuna sighed, “I don’t think I introduced myself. My name is SSA Tsunayoshi Sawada from the IOC, but feel free to call me Tsuna. I was recently appointed to be the head of a new unit of profilers. More specifically, a unit of criminals.”

Surprise and curiosity danced in Reborn’s eyes, shining through his carefully constructed mask.

“I want you to join me, Reborn. If you’re really looking to make up for what you’ve done, saving other people’s lives would be a pretty good start, no?”

“You want me, The Greatest Hitman, to join a unit of the IOC?”

Tsuna laughed quietly, “Yeah, well, all of your skill would go to waste in a jail cell. I have to at least try to recruit you.”

The corner of Reborn’s mouth twitched upwards.

“You make recruiting criminals sound so easy. What exactly would I have to agree to, to make this a reality?”

“A few things, all precautionary measures because we can’t exactly allow convicted felons to waltz around without any safeguard. You’ll have to agree to have a tracking chip implanted, all technology you’d be permitted to use would be distributed by the company, your search history would be monitored, you’d have to meet up with a parole officer every week and answer any questions they have for you, on tape. You’d also have monthly meetings with me, your parole officer, and a therapist.”

Reborn raised his eyebrows, unimpressed, “A therapist?”

“Yes. A therapist. In addition to the parole officer and myself it’s beneficial to have someone in the room intimately familiar with psychology, and sociology in dangerous offenders. They’d also be helpful for any evaluations we decide to perform at that time.”

“Hmm,” The hitman paused, “That’s quite a list.”

“Perhaps, but it’s necessary.”

“A tracking chip is necessary?” Reborn asked, disbelievingly.

“Yes, the people we’re looking to employ are dangerous. Take yourself, for example. If you were in my position, would you really trust yourself not to run?”  
“Didn’t you just say I could’ve escaped if I wanted?”

Tsuna scoffed, rolling his eyes, “Look, I don’t trust you. In fact, I’m scared of you, which makes me extra cautious. If you accept this, you’ll have to get the tracking chip, it’s non-negotiable until you prove yourself. And I’d suggest not holding your breath because it’s harder than you’d think to earn my trust.”

Reborn observed him silently.

“Any other questions?” Tsuna asked.

“What sort of tests will I have to take?”

“You’ll definitely have to do a psych eval,” He started, “You’ll probably take that before we leave, along with a polygraph test. You’ll have to take several more when we get to Florence to be given permission to be part of the team, and a physical, and skills assessment to go in the field.”

“What would the job entail? And why are they bringing criminals into the IOC?”

“Well,” Tsuna started slowly, “Things are changing. Crime is evolving, and the IOC needs to evolve with it. We’ve always known that, but it really came to the board's attention a few years ago. Something happened, it’s classified so I can’t tell you what, but it took all of our weaknesses and rubbed them in our faces.”

The brunet bit his lip, trying to collect his thoughts, “Criminals can look at crimes in ways that profilers, no matter how talented, will never be able to. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been so successful, but I can only do so much. They want to have a unit they can go to when something big happens. I think that’s one of the reasons why they waited so long to come up with a solution. I was… a trial run, I guess, and they needed to make sure they could trust me before they could trust others under my supervision.”

Tsuna reached forward to close the file, staring down at it thoughtfully before looking up to look Reborn in the eye.

“As for the job, we’ll be handling typical cases for profiling units for the most part. So think cases of serial crime, mostly homicides. We often get handed really weird stuff that others can’t make sense of. For example, I was on a case one time where the unsub was attaching the victims to a massive cross in the desert and watching them die of dehydration.” He paused, “Oh, and kidnappings, we see a lot of kidnappings.”

Reborn nodded, “Alright. What will happen today if I say yes?”

“Well, I’ll call the legal team assigned to me and have them start working on transferring custody of you to the IOC. Once we get permission to move you, you go take those tests I mentioned. Assuming everything goes well, your things from when you were arrested will be returned, minus any tech and or weapons. Then we’ll go get on a plane to Florence.”

“And who’re the other members of the team?”

Tsuna blinked, then flushed, “Actually, you’d be the first. I was only supposed to be consulting since I need a tech analyst and three field agents to receive a case.”

Reborn smirked at him, “Oh? Supposed to be? I didn’t realize my future supervisor was such a rule breaker?”

Tsuna pouted, “Hey! I– Wait, future supervisor? Are you saying yes?”

Reborn offered a genuine smile, “Well, you make a good point about not doing much good in a cell.”

Tsuna stared at him wide-eyed, then sprang up in excitement.

“Yes! Oh my gosh, I have a teammate now!”

Reborn rolled his eyes at him, feigning annoyance, but the amused curl of his lips gave him away.

____________________________________________________________________________________

The brunet eyed the time, frowning.

3:45 PM.

They needed to leave soon.

“Hey.”

Tsuna's head snapped up from his phone screen. Reborn was standing in front of him, dressed in a fitted suit, and a fedora.

He looked good, Tsuna decided. Like he was in his element.

“Hey,” He echoed, “You done?”

“Yeah. What’s next?”

Tsuna stood, shoving his phone in his pocket, “Now we get out of this dreary prison and get to the airport. Your clothes were the only thing you had on you when you got arrested?”

“Well, my clothes and my weapons, but somehow I doubt I’ll be getting those back.”

Tsuna smiled, “Yeah, no. Sorry.”

The brunet paused for a moment at the entrance to retrieve his gun then led the way out of the prison gates. Tsuna glanced at the hitman curiously.

“You don’t exactly seem like a man who’s just been set free. Not gonna break down or anything?”

Reborn just gave him one of his signature smirks and said, “Of course not. All I have to do is think of it as a hotel.”

Tsuna almost tripped, stumbling over nothing. Reborn steadied him, not even bothering to hide his amusement.

“Wow, you’re clumsy.”

Tsuna fought the urge to swat him.

“I’m not clumsy! Just– Only you would think of La Santé as a hotel.”

The hitman just started walking again, calling over his shoulder, “Making assumptions already, are we? You don’t even know me.”

Tsuna stared after him, then jogged to catch up.

“I may not know you, but somehow I can already tell you’ll be a huge pain in my ass.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, now the rest of the team will start to make an appearance!!!


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! So once again this chapter is coming a bit early. Yay! This chapter is also a bit longer (a lot longer) than usual, so yeah, enjoy.
> 
> Note: NOCS is the Italian SWAT
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.  
> Also, know that this fic may not be legally accurate.

`Florence, Italy`  
`June 30 2012`  
`1:45 PM`

50 feet.

They were only 50 feet away from the gray SUV, but somehow that small gap managed to feel miles long.

Tsuna sucked in a breath, swerving to avoid a car that hadn’t gotten out of the way fast enough. He pressed down the gas pedal, accelerating faster– 90, 100, 110 mph.

They were lucky to be on the highway now. All open space without the risk of pedestrians. At least they would be if these people would get _out of the way._

“Fuck!” Tsuna swore, spinning the wheel to follow the SUV into the oncoming lane of traffic.

“You’re gonna need to go faster,” Reborn told him tensely.

“Yeah, no fucking shit.” He snapped back.

He focused on the back of the SUV, trying to ignore the cop cars buzzing around them.

The SUV’s tires squealed against the concrete as it made a 180-degree turn and shot up the exit ramp.

Tsuna yanked the wheel to the left as far as it would go, gritting his teeth as the car lost traction for a moment, stalling.

“Tsuna, go!”

“I can’t fucking help it if the car won’t move, Reborn!”

They flew up the ramp after the SUV, trying to close the 80-foot gap.

80 feet.

They could do this.

“Faster!”

“Would you like to drive?” Tsuna snarked at his companion, “Because I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem if I pulled over so we could switch.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t such a bad driver!”

“Yeah, well, none of this would be a problem if you hadn’t put us here in the first place!”

**– 2 hours earlier –**

“Agent Sawada.”

Tsuna looked up and immediately regretted it. 

Section Chief Itsu Kawahira was an unpleasant man, with an equally unpleasant face. He was responsible for the administrative work of the teams he supervised, and was bloody good at it, but had no idea what it was like to actually be in the field. Which, combined with his patronizing personality, made him notoriously hard to work with. 

So, of course, he was Tsuna’s direct superior.

“Chief Kawahira,” Tsuna greeted, trying for a friendly smile, “How can I help you?”

“Where’s Agent Sinclair?” He asked, ignoring the brunet’s question.

“Um, he’s finishing up his field assessment. Tsuyoshi took him to the shooting range to get approved to carry a firearm.”

“I see.” Kawahira fell silent, eyes falling on the case file Tsuna had open on his desk.

Tsuna raised his eyebrows, “What can I do for you, Chief Kawahira?” He tried again.

“Word came in that one of the– ah,” The Chief paused, face twisting in distaste, “ _people of interest_ that you’ve flagged have been spotted by the local police. They’re waiting for you and Agent Sinclair to arrive before they make a move."

Tsuna shot out of his seat, “ _What?_ Why didn’t you say so?”

He grabbed his gun and jacket and ran out of the room. He flew down the stairs, and down the hall towards the shooting range.

“Reborn!”

The hitman lowered the handgun he was holding and turned to look at him.

“We need to leave, right now!” The brunet jogged up to him and took the sound-canceling headphones off his head, motioning for him to hurry, “Hey, Tsuyoshi, sorry, I need to steal Reborn for a few hours.”

He quickly led the way to the garage, pulling his phone and keys out of his jacket pocket. Tsuna scrolled through his contacts and dialed Leonardo Russo.

“Sawada?”

“Hey, Leo. Chief Kawahira told me one of the potentials I flagged showed up? He also said the police were waiting for us, do you know where?”

“Oh, yeah, hold on.” The other line went quiet for a moment, “The notice from the police says that Hayato Gokudera was spotted entering a cafe. The police haven’t moved from the station since the report only came in around 10 minutes ago.”

“Which station is it?”

“The one closest to us. I’ll send you the rest of the report, not sure if there’s anything important.”

“Perfect, thank you.”

Tsuna glanced over his shoulder at Reborn, handed him the phone.

“When the email appears I need you to read it. Let me know if there’s anything we might find useful.”

Reborn took the device with a nod. “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to meet up with the local police. One of the people I was interested in inviting to the team was spotted.”

Reborn gave a small noise of understanding as they got in the car.

“Who is it?”

“Hayato Gokudera.”

“Hayato Gokudera…” The hitman trailed off thoughtfully, “I’ve heard of him. There are rumors that he’s the illegitimate son of the Solitaria Famiglia, as well as the younger sibling of a contract killer that goes by the name of Poison Scorpion.”

“Oh? Anything else?”

“Some people say that he’s a genius, finished school years in advance, all that jazz. He’s supposed to be the hacker extraordinaire, the best of the well-known informants. At least from what I’ve heard, I’ve never done business with him.”

Tsuna turned onto the main road, going a bit faster than he probably should be. They finished the trip in silence as Reborn read the email.

Tsuna pulled into the parking lot, stopping the car. He turned to look at Reborn.

“Do you think he’s worth it?”

Reborn raised an eyebrow, “Does it matter?”

Tsuna frowned, “Of course it matters. Look, we may not know each other yet, but you are my teammate, and I’d like to be your friend. This isn’t supposed to be a dictatorship, we’re supposed to help and support each other, and the people we recruit need to be people we both get along with. Plus, you have a much clearer picture of the skill level of the people we’re going after than I do.”

The hitman observed him quietly, then said, “From what I’ve seen and heard of his work, he’s worth it.”

Tsuna nodded resolutely and stepped out of the car.

“By the way, who was it you called earlier?” asked Reborn.

“Leonardo Russo, he was the tech analyst from my old unit. We were pretty close, so when I was given this assignment I asked if he’d be willing to help us out until we got an analyst of our own, which will hopefully be happening today.”

The second they stepped foot in the station a woman approached them. Tsuna offered her a terse smile.

“Good afternoon, Ma’am. I’m SSA Sawada, and this is SSA Sinclair, we’re from the IOC.”

She nodded, reaching out to shake his hand, “Nice to meet you, Agent, I’m Chief Romano.”

“Likewise. How would you like us to help?”

“Well, we were sent your list from a month ago, so I’d like it if you’d just instruct us on how to proceed. Consider it your operation.”

Tsuna blinked in surprise, but smiled gratefully at her, “Will do, thank you very much.”

“No problem, feel free to look over everything we have, but know that we aren’t sure how much longer he’ll stay in there.”

The brunet nodded, making towards the mostly empty board in the center of the room.

“Do you recognize this place?” He asked Reborn quietly.

“It’s a cafe called Piacevole Caffè di Distrazione, it’s actually only a few blocks from here, you know that sketchy area past the bridge next to the–”

“The school, yeah.”

“Yeah, it’s right up the street from there. It’s pretty local, you don’t usually find big names there, but there are rumors it’s a hacker den, so it seems up Hayato’s alley.”

Tsuna hummed in agreement, looking at the layout of the building.

“Chief Romano, do you have security footage of the cafe?”

“No, unfortunately, it seems to be owned by some unsavory people, so there aren’t any cameras we can use.”

“Makes sense.” Tsuna licked his lips, “We’ll probably need a NOCS team, we don’t know who’s in there or what they have access to, but we have reason to believe it may be a hacker’s den.” He paused, glancing at Reborn who gave an almost imperceptible nod, he continued, “You need to be prepared to make more than one arrest.”

Romano nodded, motioning for her men to come over and listen. Tsuna turned to them.

“The main target is Hayato Gokudera, his picture is on the board. He is a well known malicious hacker and is on a list to be detained by the IOC. If you come into contact with him you need to be careful, he may be well known as a hacker, but he has ties to organized crime, and has a larger skill set.”

Reborn continued at his pause, “You’ll probably need to be careful in general. There are plenty of unknowns in that cafe, and all of them are potentially armed. Proceed with caution, and do your best to avoid maiming anyone if possible, but don’t put your life at risk. Leave anything you find alone for forensics to deal with.”

The officers nodded resolutely and went back to their respective tasks.

Reborn turned to Tsuna, smirking.

“How’d I do?” He drawled.

Tsuna kept a straight face as he patted him on the shoulder, “We’ll work on it.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna and Reborn made their way around the cheap, faded exterior of Piacevole Caffè di Distrazione silently.

Upon their arrival, Romano had requested that her men cover the front, claiming that since there were more of them, they could handle most of the people inside once the two of them found Hayato.

Tsuna agreed quickly, not finding anything wrong with that logic, and knowing that he and Reborn would need to get used to working together.

Tsuna rested his free hand, the one not occupied with a firearm, on the door handle. Reborn positioned himself on the other side of the door, ready to check the first room.

Tsuna mouthed a countdown to Reborn.

_Five_

_Four_

_Three_

_Tw–_

The door swung open, and they came face to face with a tall man who looked to be in his late 30s.

His eyes widened at the sight of them, already reaching for the gun tucked in his pants.

Reborn darted forward, pressing a hand against his mouth and using the butt of his gun to knock the man out. He lowered him to the ground slowly.

Tsuna stepped around him.

He held his gun level with his head, as he checked the corners of the room and the closet.

He looked back at Reborn, nodding, and lifted a hand to motion him up the stairs.

Reborn got up and started up the steps to the second floor. Tsuna took up the rear, half facing backwards in case anyone else entered through the back door.

At the top of the stairs, Reborn quickly pivoted around the room, ensuring it was empty, feet almost silent across the floor.

Tsuna frowned at the computers strewn across the tables, there were clearly more than a few hackers here, and this was only the first room.

Reborn cracked open the door to the hallway, allowing faint music to trickle into the room.

EDM.

A party?

Tsuna came up behind the hitman pressing his mouth to the raven’s ear.

“If you were Hayato, would you be with the others partying?”

Reborn shook his head and whispered, “Back room, probably.”

The brunet nodded, motioning for him to continue.

The hitman swung into the hallway moving quickly through it and checking the first door on the right. Tsuna took a few more steps and opened the next door, to the left.

Nothing.

They continued.

Right.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Tsuna froze.

Hayato met his gaze, eyes wide.

“Hayato Gokudera?” He asked, voice low.

Hayato nodded, eyes on his gun. “That’s me.”

“My name is Tsunayoshi Sawada, I’m from the IOC. I need you to come with me. Quietly. And no one'll get hurt.”

Hayato hesitated, eyes flickered to the table. Tsuna took a quick step forward.

“Don’t,” He warned, “Don’t even think about it. I don’t want to hurt you, but pull anything funny and I will shoot you.”

Hayato pursed his lips, nodded slowly, and raised his hands above his head as he stood.

“Tsuna?” Reborn’s voice came from the hallway.

Tsuna turned to look at the hitman, noting out of the corner of his eye how Hayato whitened at the sight of him.

_Shit, he recognizes him._

“Reborn, go back to the car.” He said urgently.

“What?”

“I said–”

He was cut off by an alarm sounding through the building. Tsuna looked up in shock, whirling around to face the hacker, who was hopping through the open window with his computer.

Tsuna ran over, growling when he saw the open window of the next building over, only about a 3-foot gap.

“Damn it, Reborn.” He cursed, reaching for the walkie talkie attached to his bulletproof vest, “Romano, move now, our cover’s been blown.”

He dove out the window, not waiting for a reply.

The brunet sprinted for the still-swinging door, not needing to look back to know Reborn was on his heels. He flew down the stairs, praying that he didn’t slip, and shot full speed out into the street.

Hayato was already in a car, a gray SUV, and was peeling away from the curb.

Their government car was a few feet behind it.

_What luck._

He unlocked the door, running for it, and heaved himself into the vehicle. He didn’t wait for Reborn to put on his seatbelt before he was switching the emergency siren on and tearing out onto the road.

Hayato’s car was easy to see since it was the only one that didn’t immediately move to pull over.

Tsuna stepped on the gas.

_Fuck._

They should’ve known. _Of course_ , Hayato would recognize Reborn. Hadn’t he literally just explained to the police that the hacker had ties to organized crime?

Tsuna chanced a look at the speedometer.

60 mph.

On a road that’s supposed to be 30.

Lovely.

100 feet.

Not too bad.

Tsuna sped up a bit. He tracked the SUV with his eyes, doing his best to keep sight of it.

It turned, and Tsuna twirled the wheel to the side, not bothering to slow down, but wincing as the car tipped and righted itself.

They were going down a narrow alley, and Tsuna’s stomach dropped as they emerged on a busy road.

Cars slammed on their brakes, swerving and honking angrily as the pair continued on.

The echoing police sirens alerted Tsuna to the arrival of Romano’s men. A somewhat belated realization, since he was focused on keeping Reborn and himself intact and not flattened on the side of the road.

Hayato drove over the median and veered onto the entrance to the highway.

Tsuna followed close behind.

50 feet.

Faster– 90, 100, 110 mph.

“You’re gonna need to go faster,” Reborn told him tensely.

“Yeah, no fucking shit.” He snapped back.

He focused on the back of the SUV in front of them, trying to ignore the cop cars buzzing around them.

The SUV’s tires squealed against the concrete as it made a 180-degree turn and shot up the exit ramp.

Tsuna yanked the wheel to the left as far as it would go, gritting his teeth as the car lost traction for a moment, stalling.

“Tsuna, go!”

“I can’t fucking help it if the car won’t move, Reborn!”

They flew up the ramp, after the SUV, trying to close the 80-foot gap.

80 feet.

They could do this.

“Faster!”

“Would you like to drive?” Tsuna snarked at his companion, “Because I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem if I pulled over so we could switch.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t such a bad driver!”

“Yeah, well, none of this would be a problem if you hadn’t put us here in the first place!”

“What the hell did _I_ do?”

“Oh my Lord, _shut up_ , I’m trying to focus!”

Tsuna groaned as he recognized where they were going; a heavily trafficked pedestrian plaza. If Hayato managed to get there before them, he could easily disappear in the crowd.

A skeleton of a plan appeared in his mind. Tsuna nodded to himself and promptly turned left into another back street.

“Tsuna, what are you _doing_?”

“Shut. Up.”

He pressed the gas pedal even more firmly towards the floor, ignoring the shouts and the blaring horns of the surrounding cars, quickly moving out of his way.

Left. Straight. Right. Right. Left. Straight. Left.

He took one last sharp turn and skidded to a stop in front of Hayato’s gray SUV.

The hacker slammed on the breaks, stopping just a few feet shy of them, as the police cars swarmed around the SUV.

10 feet.

Tsuna grabbed his gun and hopped out of the car, stepping towards the SUV.

“Put your hands where I can see them!” He yelled, “Show me your hands!”

Hayato pushed his hands through the driver’s door window, holding them out in surrender. Tsuna took another step forward.

“Open the door from the outside with one hand.”

The hacker followed his instructions.

“Get out. Get down on your knees, and put your hands behind your head.”

Once he was on the ground an officer approached from behind him with handcuffs. Tsuna lowered his gun, watching as the man shoved the hacker into a cop car.

Chief Romano walked up to him, “We’ll follow you to IOC headquarters. We can provide you an escort.”

“Got it, thanks.”

Tsuna trudged back to the car, sliding into his seat.

There was a moment of silence.

“Ok but seriously, what did I do?” Reborn asked.

Tsuna snorted, shaking his head, “Later.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Leonardo was waiting for them when they got back.

“Sawada,” He nodded to Reborn, “Sinclair. Chief wants to see you, Sawada. Right away.”

Tsuna groaned, turning to Reborn, “Just take him to an interrogation room, and wait for me.”

“Got it.”

Tsuna sighed and made his way to Kawahira’s office.

He knocked softly.

“Enter.”

“Chief Kawahira,” He began, “You called for me?”

The man gave him a once over, lips thinned into a fine line.

“Yes. I did. The hacker you went out to retrieve, is he in custody?”

“Yes, sir, he is.”

“And will he be the newest member of your little circus?”

Tsuna’s jaw clenched.

_Greeeeat, he’s even less of a fan of me than I thought._

“He will be if he accepts my offer, sir.”

Kawahira eyed him coldly.

“Are you aware of some of the infractions that man has committed? He’s a threat, how can he have a place in the IOC?”

“I am, indeed, aware of some of Mr. Gokudera’s actions. Of course, he’s a threat, he’s a criminal, sir. And to that end, I’d be willing to say that SSA Sinclair is _much_ more of a risk than Gokudera, and yet he’s already been accepted into the agency.” He paused, then ground out a sarcastic, “ _Sir._ ”

Kawahira’s face twisted in irritation.

“I wasn’t told about Sinclair until after the fact, as you know since you purposely went around me.” The Chief paused glaring up at him, “Do what you want. I don’t have control over these particular decisions of yours, as the Director has given you full authority. _However_ , just know that I do not, _at all_ , approve of you, Sinclair, or _anyone_ else you decide to recruit. You’re all felons who deserve to rot in a cell.” The Chief scowled harder. “Now get out of my office.”

Tsuna smiled sweetly at him, “ _Of course_ , sir.”

He slammed the door a bit more than necessary on his way out, but he didn’t particularly care.

It wasn’t surprising. He knew that certain people wouldn’t take kindly to criminals being in the IOC. Hell, he’d dealt with it before, and his situation had been largely under wraps until now.

But did it really have to be his direct superior?

Tsuna sighed, arriving at the interrogation room.

_Whatever. I have a job to do._  
He stepped into the room, noting how Reborn was sitting across from Hayato, looking bored out of his mind.

Hayato, on the other hand, looked like his soul was in the process of leaving his body.

“Oh my God, Reborn, would you stop?!” The hitman’s head snapped up to look at him. “You’re scaring him with your– Your everything!”

“The hell? I’ve done nothing!”

Tsuna groaned in exasperation.

“You know what? We’re going to have a conversation about this. Later.”

Reborn rolled his eyes as Tsuna sat down next to him.

Hayato was looking between them looking half horrified, half reluctantly amused.

Tsuna sat forward, resting his elbows on the table.

“So, Hayato. We have a lot to talk about.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok!!! Hayato has entered the chat (and two other characters from canon, can you figure out who? If not check the tags)! What do you guys think so far? How do you like the idea of Hayato as a hacker/tech analyst? What do you think of Reborn/Tsuna's dynamic so far? Anything to improve? Anything in particular that you liked? Let me know!
> 
> Note: NOCS is the Italian SWAT


	7. We're All Monkeys Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok! I didn't quite make my Saturday deadline, but I only missed it by a few minutes so hopefully, you guys can forgive me (^_^). Before reading please note: Yes, I am aware that the name of the bar sucks, which was the idea.
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.

`Manchester, England`  
`July 11 2012`  
`7:46 AM`

The thing about making large decisions on a whim is that, sooner or later, you tend to find yourself hopelessly lost. Typically that wasn’t literal, but here he was.

Tsuna huffed, annoyed. Logically he knew that, no, the streets did not all look the same, but they might as well have been for all the good his shitty internal compass was doing for him.

Honestly, he should’ve known better, or at least warned Reborn and Hayato that he was crap at directions so they didn’t allow him to wander off on his own.

He pouted. Even dealing with Reborn’s teasing was preferable to wandering aimlessly through Manchester.

_Too late now._

He picked a direction and started walking, deciding it was better than staying put, especially considering the dark clouds hanging overhead. 

He resolved to try and find a restaurant or bar or something to hang out in while it rained, since he’d neglected to take an umbrella with him.

“Hey.” A voice called out. Tsuna kept walking. There was a large crowd, and chances were they weren’t talking to him.

A hand caught his shoulder, forcing him to a stop.

“I said, hey.” Tsuna faced him, fighting the urge to raise an eyebrow.

“Hello to you too,” He replied, in English, reminding himself that they were in the UK.

The man was tall, definitely taller than Tsuna, and well built. He looked to be in his late 20s, long brown hair, beard and a mustache. Tsuna’s eyes flickered down, catching sight of tattoos decorating his fingers. British prison tattoos.

The man seemed to be studying him just as intently.

This time Tsuna did raise his eyebrows. “Can I help you with something?”

The man’s eyes seemed to harden, he scowled. “I knew it was you, you son of a bitch.”

He grasped the front of Tsuna’s shirt tightly and swung his fist.

“I’ll kill you, asshole!”

**– 18 hours earlier –**

“Alright,” Tsuna began, eyeing Reborn and Hayato, “You’ve both settled in nicely, and managed to pass all your evaluations and assessments. You’ve proved to the IOC that you’re capable and stable enough to be in the field on assignment. But before we do anything, you have to prove it to me.”

Reborn raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you personally select us?”

“Yes, I did.” Tsuna said, “I chose both of you because I have confidence in your reputation and abilities. The issue is, I can’t pull people off the street and expect them to be competent profilers, and we _are_ a profiling unit. So unfortunately, even if we get our third field agent sometime soon, we won’t be taking a case until I’m satisfied with your skills.”

At their silence Tsuna continued, “Hayato, you’ll be the team’s tech analyst, so you won’t have to be here for most of this training. That said, you need to know the basics and you need to know them well. You’ll attend these sessions until I determine you know enough to assist other units with active cases, understand?”

“Yeah, got it.”

“Perfect, let’s start.”

Tsuna moved over to the back of the room, raising the projector screen to reveal a white board. He wrote, in large text, the words ‘Trigger’ and ‘Stressor’.

“One of the first things you need to be able to identify and differentiate between are Triggers and Stressors. They are often mistaken for each other, but they have very different meanings.”

Hayato has his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, typing furiously on his computer. Reborn, on the other hand, had his feet casually propped up on the table in front of him, but the intensity of his gaze on the brunet was enough to convince him that the hitman was paying attention.

“A Trigger is a sensory experience, either touch, taste, smell, sound, or sight, that causes a temporary change of behavior such as panic, anger, et cetera, and makes the UnSub more dangerous to deal with. We typically do our best to avoid Triggers, but in some special cases it can be helpful to use a Trigger to our advantage.”

Tsuna paused, letting Hayato catch up before continuing. “A Stressor is an event or circumstance that can alter how a person behaves in the long run. This can be the loss of a loved one, witnessing some sort of violence, rape, the loss of a job. Basically any sort of trauma or situation that causes high stress. In our line of work the Stressor is what often makes the UnSub turn to crime, most often killing.”

Hayato’s hand shot up.

“Yes, Hayato?”

“I’ve actually been meaning to ask for awhile, but what’s an UnSub?”

Tsuna blinked. “Oh, yeah. It means Unknown Subject, it’s what we call the person responsible for a crime.”

The hacker nodded and added it to his notes.

“Ok, then. I’m going to put a recent news report on the projector, so you’ll have a real example, then I’m going to quiz you. It seems easy, but it can get really complicated.”

He lowered the projector screen and quickly pulled the report into view.

“This is in Manchester. They recently had a serial killer on their hands. This a pretty straight forward case, but pay attention. I want you to try and identify the Trigger and Stressor on your own.”

He pressed play, and sat back in his chair.

The video opened on a reporter standing in the street in front of a large area cut off with caution tape. She waited a moment then began talking.

_«Earlier today Gregory Wilson was apprehended by the local police in the lobby of the Alliance Manchester Business School. After several personal losses Wilson was expelled from the school due to numerous altercations with staff. Wilson killed four of his professors with explosives placed in their vehicles, before showing up to the school with a bomb strapped to his chest and armed with a rifle. Upon their arrival, police were able to talk Wilson down, but the appearance of Professor Elizabeth Jones quickly escalated the situation, resulting in the death of Mrs. Jones and Officer Oliver Williams. Here’s the footage now.»_

Grainy security footage filled the screen. There was a large crowd in the lobby, hiding Wilson until he raised his rifle and fired upwards. The crowd scrambled away from him into a loose circle. 

Wilson opened his jacket so they could see the bomb strapped to his chest and he yelled something, unheard since the video had no sound.

The security guards already stationed in the building arrived on the scene and pushed to the center of the circle, followed by the police around five minutes later.

The police put themselves between Wilson and the ring of people on all sides. The officer in front of him began talking to him calmly.

A woman entered into the building, clearly unaware of what was transpiring inside the circle. She approached, looking concerned, most likely because of the police cars outside.

The woman– presumably Elizabeth– began pushing her way into the circle as well.

Wilson froze when she came into view, taking a half step back. She stared at him, wide-eyed. He said something to her, but the response he got seemed to shock and anger him.

The officer closest to her, maybe 5 feet away, made a move towards her. Wilson raised his gun and shot him in the chest before turning and shooting Elizabeth as well.

An officer behind Wilson shouted something and shot Wilson in the back.

The clip ended.

_«Wilson is alive, but had to be transported to the emergency room for–»_

Tsuna paused the video and turned to his coworkers.

“What do you think? Any ideas?”

“The reporter included several things that could have been the Stressor, but it seems like the thing that made him snap was his expulsion.” said Reborn, “And the Trigger must have been the arrival of his Professor.” 

The hitman paused, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face. “How’d I do?”

Tsuna groaned, trying to stifle his laughter. “Why are you making this a thing?” He demanded.

Reborn blinked innocently at him. “Making what a thing? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Tsuna glanced exasperatedly at Hayato, whose mouth twitched into an amused smile (a vast improvement from a few days ago. Reborn was easier to interact with when he was like this, it was hard to take him seriously, and it was harder to fear him).

Tsuna huffed, “Well, yes. All that is true, but there’s something else I was hoping you’d notice.”

They stared at him questioningly. 

Tsuna continued. “Profilers need to look deeper into things than anyone else. Yes, he unraveled because Elizabeth arrived, but that’s not good enough. Why did her presence provoke such a dramatic response? You could argue that he was angry at all his professors because of his expulsion. But then I could argue that you have no proof, which is why we study body language and other indicators to _find_ proof. Make sense?”

They both nodded. Hayato raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“What was it you wanted us to notice?”

Tsuna hummed, reaching forward to rewind the video. He pressed play.

“Before Elizabeth arrived the officers at the scene were talking to Wilson, and, like the reporter said, they seemed to be making progress. Now when Elizabeth makes her way to the center of the circle, look at his reaction to her appearance.”

“He takes a step back.” Reborn supplied.

“Correct.” Tsuna affirmed, pausing the video. “Why?”

“Maybe he wasn’t expecting to see her.” Hayato suggested doubtfully.

“Why _wouldn’t_ he expect to see her? He was targeting his professors and showed up to school with a bomb strapped to his chest. Seeing her should’ve encouraged him, given him reassurance that his plan would succeed. Instead, he hesitated.”

Reborn and Hayato both looked confused.

“Why would he hesitate if it was clear the object of his rage would be caught in the blast?” Tsuna asked, “Unless it wasn’t her he was trying to hurt.”

“What?” Hayato asked, bewildered.

“Wilson had a bomb strapped to his chest. Even if he was surprised to see her, which wouldn’t make sense under the circumstances, why would he take a step back? Unless he didn’t want to hurt her and was subconsciously trying to create distance between them.” Tsuna explained, “And that’s not all, look at his facial expression.”

He let them observe Wilson for a moment before letting the video play up until Elizabeth responded to him.

“What did you notice?” Tsuna asked.

“He didn’t seem angry.” Reborn responded slowly, “He didn’t seem angry at all until she said something to him.”

“That’s right. Watch what he does next.”

They watched as Wilson shot Officer Williams, then Elizabeth. Tsuna paused it again.

Hayato looked confused again, “I don’t understand. He got angry about what she said and shot them.”

“Yeah, but–” Reborn cut himself off, staring at the screen contemplatively, “He didn’t shoot her first.”

Tsuna grinned. “Yes, exactly. I want you to really think about this. Put yourself in his shoes. He is looking at her, _talking_ to her. He is focused entirely on Elizabeth. So why did he shoot Williams first?”

“He was reaching for her.” Reborn said, realization dawning in his eyes.

“Right, and why does that matter?” Tsuna asked, pride seeping into his voice.

“Because,” The hitman paused, formulating a response, “Because everything about Wilson changed when he saw her. His anger disappeared, and he was surprised to see her, which wouldn’t make sense if she was his target. He took a step back, as if to create distance between them and protect her. That only fits in if he cared for her.” 

Reborn pursed his lips, “He killed the officer for trying to get to her, or maybe for trying to touch her? But why would he kill her if he cared for her?”

“Well going back to what you were saying earlier, she was still the Trigger. Wilson was a serial killer, as he’d killed more than 3 people, and based on this video I’d guess he was under some sort of delusion based around Elizabeth. Whatever she said must’ve broken that delusion which drove him to kill her. Wil–”

Tsuna cut himself off, doing a double take. He stared at the screen wide-eyed.

_“Why are you stalking me, monkey?”_

“Tsuna?” Hayato asked.

He made his way to the front of the room, ignoring the question. He leaned closer to the screen, squinting.

_Is that–? It is! Holy shit! Of course, why didn’t I think of her earlier? She’s perfect!_

He whirled around. “We’re going to England!”

Silence.

“What?” Hayato squeaked.

Reborn snorted. “Alright then.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Ah!” Tsuna exclaimed, “He found them.”

“Tsuna.” Reborn said “What are we doing here?”

Tsuna looked up at his teammates, smiling. “Well, if everything goes okay we should be getting our third field agent today.”

“Third field agent?” Hayato asked.

“We need three field agents and a tech analyst to receive cases.” Reborn explained shortly.

“That’s right. When we were looking at that news report I recognized someone in the crowd. We’ve met a few times, and although she isn’t on my list of people eligible to be on the team, I think she’d be a good addition.”

Tsuna set his phone down on the table between them, sliding it across.

“This is her. She isn’t a well known criminal, so the IOC doesn’t have a profile for her, let alone pictures. Which is why she _isn’t_ on the list.”

“Wait,” Hayato said, “If the IOC doesn’t have pictures of her, then how do you?”

Tsuna blinked. “Oh. I was around 13 and my father decided I needed to brush up on my surveillance skills. He gave me a name– Hana Kurokawa– and sent me to stalk her. I got the pictures, but she ended up catching me.”

_Tsuna looked down at his most recent photo critically. If he were to take this home, his father would only tell him it was too blurry._

_He sighed, resigned to the fact that he’d be stuck following Hana for the next few hours. At least his father lent him the van, telling him not to get caught with it since he wasn’t legal yet._

_Tsuna looked up, biting back a curse when he realized that Hana was nowhere to be found. He scanned the street frantically, trying to spot her in the crowd._

_He jumped nearly a foot when someone knocked on the passenger side window._

_It was Hana._

_He stared._

_She stared back, unimpressed._

_After a few more moments he rolled down the window._

_“Why are you stalking me, monkey?”_

_He hesitated. “Um… because?”_

_He cringed at his response, his father’s lessons on expressing himself confidently echoing through his head._

_“I mean– I’m supposed to. Follow you. But like– I mean not like that. Well, yes like that. But I’m supposed to get a picture. Of you. I was sent to get a picture of you.”_

_He flushed. That was worse than the first try._

_She snorted at him._

_“Then take one.”_

_“Huh?”_

_“Take a picture of me. You suck at this, so I’d bet anything I’m just practice. Plus, you’re annoying. So take a picture and leave.”_

_Tsuna fumbled with his camera, scrambling to take her picture before she changed her mind._

“Your father?” Hayato echoed weakly.

“Iemitsu Sawada.” Reborn told him.

The color drained from Hayato’s face.

“Anyway,” Tsuna continued, “That was why we met the first time, but we ran into each other pretty consistently over the years. Got to be friendly with each other. I think she’d be happy to join us, even if she wouldn’t act like it.”

Reborn nodded. Hayato looked– Well, he’d pull through.

Tsuna took his phone back.

“When the train comes to a stop we’re going to go look for a bar called Dizzy Dragon Hideout. You have the phones assigned to you?”

“Indeed.” Reborn confirmed.

“Great. Keep those on you. Let the rest of us know if you find it. If you get there before me, don’t enter, and don’t talk to her. Wait. Understand?”

They both nodded.

“Get ready, then.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Can I help you with something?”

The man’s eyes seemed to harden, he scowled. “I knew it was you, you son of a bitch.”

He grasped the front of Tsuna’s shirt tightly and swung his fist.

“I’ll kill you, asshole!”

Tsuna dodged out of the way and ripped out of the guy’s grip. The man came at him again.

And again.

And _again._

Tsuna let out a small growl as he continued to dodge.

_I_ really _don’t want to fight anyone right now._

“Why are you attacking me?” He called out to him.

The man– let’s call him Bartholomew– just swung at him again.

“Seriously, man! What the hell did I do to piss you off?”

Bartholomew snarled at him. “You’re Iemitsu’s son. That piece of shit had me put away for 10 fucking _years._ ”

_Shit, what am I even supposed to say to that? Bartholo– fuck it– Bart should just drop it. But hey, he might be able to point me in the direction of that bar._

“Hey! While I have you here, do you happen to know where the Dizzy Dragon Hideout is?”

Bart faltered. “The Di– You mean the bar down by King Street?”

“Yep, that’s the one, thanks!” Tsuna turned and ran, diving into the crowd.

He only stopped running when he reached King Street, keeping an eye out for the bar. He turned the corner, running headlong into someone.

Tsuna glanced up, making eye contact with Hana.

He offered her a sheepish grin. 

“Hey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty, folks, another chapter is complete!!!! Hana is on the team's radar. What are your thoughts on this chapter? What did you like? What didn't you like? Let me know!


	8. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok! Chapter 7. Done! (^_^) Please enjoy.
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.  
> Also, know that this fic may not be legally accurate.

`Manchester, England`  
`July 11 2012`  
`8:02 AM`

Tsuna wiped his sweaty palms on his pants, nervously glancing around. Standing in this bar, surrounded by people he used to associate himself with, was a lot more nerve wracking than he’d ever admit.

He was alone, Hana calling out a brief _“be right back”_ over her shoulder before disappearing behind the bar. And now Tsuna was left wondering whether or not he should call Reborn and Hayato.

He sighed.

_I probably should. I can hardly tell them to always call for backup if I don’t do the same. Hopefully, Reborn’s presence doesn’t cause a ruckus._

He quickly sent his location to his teammates and shoved his phone back into his pocket. The model was unique to law enforcement, and he didn’t need anyone here knowing he was IOC.

Except Hana, of course.

“Monkey.”

Tsuna raised his head. Hana motioned him towards her.

“My boss said I can take a break. Let’s talk in the back.”

Tsuna followed her dutifully. “Nice place.” He commented.

She let out a small laugh. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.”

He felt his lips twitch up into a small smile. It was just like Hana to judge her own workplace. She probably considered this place a dump. Not that that seemed to bother her.

Hana opened a door to what looked like a break room. Tsuna stepped through the threshold and made his way over to one of the tables scattered around, sitting in one of the chairs.

Hana settled in across from him with a sigh. There was a small silence before she spoke. “What happened to you?”

Tsuna raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“A few years back, you just disappeared. I thought someone might’ve killed you, but clearly not that’s not the case. So, what happened?”

“Ah. Well,” Tsuna trailed off, considering what to tell her. “My dad was on a mission for some dangerous people. He failed. The IOC got involved. They didn’t know I existed until they arrested him. One of the higher ups offered me a chance to be an agent.”

Hana laughed. “Yeah, very funny. You were raised in the Mafia, you can’t be a part of the IOC.”

Tsuna just looked at her, amused. He reached in his blazer and pulled out his badge, flipping it open and showing it to her. She gaped at it, reaching across the table and taking it from him. She turned it over in her hands.

“It looks real.” She said.

Tsuna scoffed. “It _is_ real.”

Hana rolled her eyes, tossing the badge back to him. “I don’t believe it. I’m not stupid, monkey.”

“I know you aren’t stupid, Hana. That’s why I’m here.” He paused, observing her. “I’m not sure how to convince you that I’m telling the truth.”

“If you’re a part of the IOC then shouldn’t you be arresting me? Or raiding the bar for that matter? Everyone upstairs is some sort of convict, you know.”

“I know. And usually yes, but there are special circumstances.”

“Special circumstances?” She asked disbelievingly.

“I’m recruiting.” He explained.

“Recruiting?” Hana asked, staring at him blankly. “In _this_ sketchy bar?”

Tsuna sighed. “It’s a long story.”

“I have the rest of the day off.”

Tsuna’s response was interrupted by a knocking at the door. A staff member cracked the door open, looking pale.

“U-um, so sorry to bother you, b-but there’s a m-man outside.”

Tsuna laughed quietly. “I’m really sorry about that. He’s with me.”

He stood, glancing over at Hana who was gawking at him. “Come on, this bar’s not the best place to talk now that my team’s here.”

“Team?” She asked. “Wait, you were serious?”

Tsuna laughed, making his way to the door. “ _That’s_ what I’ve been trying to _tell_ you.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“What the hell happened to you, monkey?”

Tsuna blinked at her. “I already told you.”

“No.” Hana said, yanking him closer so she could whisper into his ear, “Joining the IOC isn’t a viable reason to have The Greatest _fucking_ Hitman casually walking down the street with us.”

“I know,” Tsuna told her despairingly, “Isn’t it annoying how natural he looks doing _everything_?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!” She hissed to him. “Aren’t you scared?”

“Yes.”

She stared at him in bewilderment. “Then _why_?”

“Because he doesn’t deserve to rot in jail or to sell his soul to the Mafia. That, and it’s a little harder to be fearful of him when you know how much of a total dork he is.”

Tsuna stumbled when someone smacked him over the head. He brought his hand to cradle the back of his throbbing skull.

He pouted. “Mou, Reborn! Why are you hitting me? I am your supervisor.”

“Exactly, _boss_.” Reborn said, face contorting into the shittiest imitation of innocence Tsuna had ever seen. “You need to set an example for the rest of us. I can’t believe you’d say such unkind things about me behind my back. I’m hurt. Deeply.”

Tsuna scoffed at him. “Right. Sure. I don’t know what to tell you, but you’re already beyond any help my _examples_ can offer you.”

“We’re here.” Hayato spoke up.

Tsuna glanced up at the doors of the cafe in surprise.

_That was fast._

His phone rang. Tsuna glanced towards his pocket, hastily glancing at the number on his screen.

Nono.

“Tsuna?” Hana asked.

“I, uh–” Tsuna glanced up at her awkwardly. “I’m going to have to take this. You guys go in, I’ll join you in a minute.”

The group nodded and entered the cafe.

Tsuna answered the call, walking a little ways from the door.

“Hey, Nono.”

“Tsunayoshi.”

“What’s up?” He asked.

“I heard you were in England.” Nono told him.

“Oh,” Tsuna said. “Yes. We are.”

“Why? Is everything, okay? You don’t normally leave without informing Kawahira.”

“Yes.” Tsuna said quickly. “Everything is great. We’re actually here to recruit someone. Hana Kurokawa. She isn’t on my list, but I know her and trust in her capabilities.”

“I see. That’s good news.”

“Yeah, I–”

His phone clattered to the ground and his collar was yanked roughly from behind. He grunted in pain as his back slammed against the wall.

Tsuna looked up.

_God damn it, Bart!_

____________________________________________________________________________________

Reborn’s fingers thrummed against the table. He glanced at the door again, looking for Tsuna.

He’d never admit it, but without the brunet things were so awkward. His reputation was a monster, he knew that. He’d never really noticed it though because he didn’t make a habit of having casual conversations with other mafiosi. Or people, for that matter.

Tsuna really was something else. He’d actually admitted being scared of him to his face, but Reborn hardly saw any of that reflected in their conversations. Sometimes he could see the fear in Tsuna’s eyes, the fear of approaching him, or asking him questions, but the brunet always did it anyway.

Reborn looked over at Hayato, holding back a sigh at the hacker’s barely concealed flinch. He’d need to work on that. Soon. Preferably as soon as they got back.

He frowned at the door. Where was he? It’d been awhile hadn’t it?

He stood, pointedly ignoring the way both Hayato and Hana jumped.

“I’m gonna go check on him.” He said. “Who knows, maybe the idiot managed to lock himself in a dumpster or something.”

Hana snorted.

_See? Progress._

Reborn pushed the door of the cafe open, scanning the street for any signs of Tsuna.

_Where did he go?_

His gaze dropped to the phone laying on the sidewalk. He picked it up and brought it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Hello.” Another voice replied. “Who is this?”

Reborn took another glance at the phone. It was definitely Tsuna’s. That little dent on the corner was unmistakable. Especially since Tsuna had covered it in a bandage as a joke.

“This is SSA Sinclair.” He said finally. God, it was weird to introduce himself that way. “May I ask who _you_ are?”

“I’m Timoteo di Vongola, the director of the IOC. Tsunayoshi’s been attacked. They should still be in the area.”

Reborn’s lips parted in surprise. “Ok. I’ll find him, don’t worry.”

He hung up. _Somewhere close by, huh?_

There was a loud clatter from an alley nearby, like a metal trash can had been knocked over. He moved towards it quickly, almost jogging.

Sure enough, Tsuna was there.

Reborn took a moment to sit in dumbfounded silence at the expression on the brunet’s face. Tsuna, jumpy, skittish, tiny Tsuna, who jumped when he saw a fucking rabbit shift in a bush. Who couldn’t even ask one of the secretaries for a pen without wimping out. Who couldn’t reach the goddamn shelf of mugs at work and so needed Reborn to get him coffee every morning, barely looked fazed at being pinned to the wall by three men twice his size.

Tsuna sighed, sounding resigned and annoyed. “Look, I don’t want to beat the shit out of you, but I will. I don’t really give a fuck what my father did in the past, and I don’t have time to deal with this.”

Reborn raised an eyebrow, but decided not to question it. The man had been selected as Unit Chief, and there was probably a reason.

But on the other hand, finding out wasn’t worth watching Tsuna get beat up.

He stalked up to the men, placing his hand on the shoulder of the one holding Tsuna.

“Hey,” He said lowly, whipping the man around to face him, “What do you think you’re doing?”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna looked at Reborn in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting anyone to come looking for him, and he certainly wasn’t expecting the hitman to step up and defend him.

He turned his gaze to the men. Tsuna was almost positive they didn’t recognize Reborn, but it didn’t matter. The man could be easy going when he wanted to, but when he got serious it was no joke. 

His already impressive posture seemed to become ramrod straight, making him seem taller. He squared his shoulders and clenched his jaw, his eyes went sharp and cold.

Professionalism. His very presence reeked of it. Especially as his aura seemed to grow deadly, the shadows on his face darkening to accentuate his features. 

Maybe that part was just his imagination. 

The point was, when the hitman was committed, he was fucking terrifying. And right now he was serious. About Tsuna’s safety. 

It was an oddly touching thought. Odd because he was fairly certain that Reborn didn’t actually care about him as a person. He cared because Tsuna was essential to his freedom and useful for his future. Which was fair.

Bart looked torn between glaring back at Reborn and pissing his pants. He settled on the former, fixing Reborn with an annoyed, albeit weak, scowl.

“None of your business.”

“Actually it is,” Reborn said flatly. “See that right there is my boss. I happen to need him intact, and you’re going to help me keep him that way or I promise you’ll regret it.”

Bart narrowed his eyes. “Are you threatening me?”

Reborn regarded Bart cooly. “Threatening you?” He repeated sarcastically. “I don’t know, maybe. I’m hoping you’re intelligent enough to figure it out, but it’s looking less and less likely.”

Bart clenched his jaw at Reborn’s condescending tone, but held back, glancing nervously down at the phone clutched in the hitman’s hand. His friends seemed to be having the same sort of thought because one of them stepped forward.

“Hey, maybe we should–”

“No!” Bart snapped. “This little–”

He was cut off by a click. The men looked back towards Reborn, paling when they saw him lift a gun to Bart’s head.

_Wait, what?_

“Oh, don’t mind me. Feel free to continue, I’m just considering how nice you’d look as a rug.”

The hitman cocked his pistol, and smirked cruelly which was all it took for the trio to take off down the alley.

Tsuna stared at where they disappeared before turning to Reborn, who was giving him a once over, most likely checking for injuries.

“What the fuck, Reborn!”

“What?! I was trying to be helpful. I figured threatening them a little wouldn’t–”

“No, not that! You haven’t been issued a weapon yet. Where the hell did you get that gun?”

Reborn blinked. “I stole it from the shooting range.”

“You–” Tsuna stared at him in horror. “You what?! Do you have any idea how much trouble that could get you in?”

“I think I can deal wi–”

“No!” Tsuna yelled, serious. “No, Reborn! This isn’t funny. You’re only authorized to carry your issued weapon. It was part of the agreement. If you’re caught I won’t be able to protect you. You _have_ to follow the rules. Never do something like this again. _Ever_. I don’t want you to go back to prison and I know you don’t want to either.”

Reborn eyes were wide, as he stared down at Tsuna silently.

“I– Yeah, okay. I won’t. Promise.”

Tsuna held out his hand.

Reborn handed him his gun.

Tsuna sighed, moving to retract his hand.

“Wait.” The brunet paused at the word, tilting his head questioningly.

Reborn reached behind him and pulled another gun from his waistband. He handed it to Tsuna, who stared at the gun blankly.

The brunet opened his mouth to comment when Reborn placed another in his hands.

Tsuna’s head snapped up, gawking as Reborn reached down and pulled another gun from an ankle holster. Then did the same on the other side. He stood and handed both to Tsuna.

“Oh my God, what is wrong with you?” Tsuna whined. “One wasn’t enough so you had to grab freaking _five?_ ”

“You can never be too careful. What if I’m fighting five people?”

“Then you use one or two guns because you don’t have five hands!”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Wait.” Hana said slowly. “Let me get this straight. You’re letting criminals into the IOC? You’ve already got Reborn and Mr. Peppy Techy over there, and _now_ you want _me_ to join you?”

Tsuna nodded. “Yep.”

Hana stared at him. Tsuna held eye contact.

After about a minute she sighed, looking away.

“Normally I’d ask about the job, but I'm just gonna nip this in the bud” She said. “I can’t, even if I wanted to.”

Tsuna frowned. “Why not.”

“I can’t leave Kyoko.”

Tsuna furrowed his brow. “Kyoko?” He asked.

“My best friend.” She explained.

Tsuna glanced at Hayato, motioning towards the computer he had open on the table. The hacker nodded and began typing.

Tsuna looked back towards Hana who was looking between them, eyes narrowed.

“What?” She asked. “What was that? What is this? What is he doing?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Tsuna told her.

“Don’t worry about it?” Hana repeated. “I’m going to worry about it! I–”

“Kyoko Sasagawa.” Hayato interrupted. “Age, 22. Light brown hair, light brown eyes. 5 feet and 4 inches. 122 pounds.”

“Hey! Never reveal a woman’s weight, you monkey!”

“Both her parents are alive, Ichika and Benjiro Sasagawa. She has an older brother, Ryohei Sasagawa. Age, 24. She ran away from home at 16 when her brother left for college and never returned. She has a criminal record of petty theft. Apparently she’s talked several car dealers into letting her ‘borrow’ their cars. She’s been leasing an apartment here in Manchester with Hana for the past six months.”

Hana looked pissed. “What ar–”

“Oh. She’s perfect.” Tsuna said. “We need a Liaison to the press in our team anyways. She sounds like she’d be a good fit.”

Hana blinked, the anger melting off her face and being replaced with genuine confusion.

“W-What?” She asked.

“Kyoko can come with us.” Tsuna told her. “What would you say to that?”

“I-I don’t know?! I mean– I guess, it would depend on what she says?”

Tsuna nodded, smiling encouragingly. “Great. Call her. We’ll be right over here.”

Hana gaped at him.

Reborn huffed a small laugh at her expression. She turned to look at him, questioning.

“Yes, he’s always like this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we get Reborn's perspective for the first time, and get a good look of Tsuna and Reborn's current relationship. Yay! As usual let me know what you liked or didn't like.


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aliiiiivvvvveeeeeee! Though I guess you guys probably figured that out from the oneshot I posted. Anyways, I just want to apologize for not updating for so long! I felt so bad, but I couldn't figure out what to do with this chapter for the life of me! I eventually decided not to force it because I was already late, and if you were going to have to wait I wanted it to be worth it.
> 
> You also may have seen in my notes on Fake It Till You Make It that I was planning on writing a few more oneshots before this chapter. As you can see that is not the case. I sat down to finish writing a story that will also hopefully be coming out soon, and just realized this is what I wanted to write. I was like 'THIS IS MY CHANCE!'. So, yeah!
> 
> Sorry for the long notes and enjoy the Chapter 8 (and I swear I'll try to get back on schedule).
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.

`Manchester, England`  
`July 11 2012`  
`5:39 PM`

He wished he’d had Hayato run a background check. 

On Kyoko, that is.

From what Hana had told him after getting off the phone with her, the thief wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of joining the IOC, and the closer they got to their apartment the more Tsuna realized he had no idea what to say.

But Tsuna had recognized the look on Hana’s face– He fucking recognized it, and cursed his goddamned bleeding heart because he couldn’t help helping her.

She had already been mourning the opportunity that she’d– to Tsuna, at least– seemed to want. And that wasn’t something Tsuna could let go. Oh no, of course not, he couldn’t just have left it there.

He sighed.

_Well, it’s not really that big a deal. I do really want them on the team._

The good thing was that Hana was guiding him this time around, so he most likely wouldn’t get lost.

“Hey, monkey.”

He hummed in acknowledgement.

“Why’d you leave the other monkeys at the coffee shop?”

“I didn’t. I gave them the address of the hotel I booked on the way here.”

Hana looked back at him and raised her eyebrows.

Tsuna smiled. “Well, I figured convincing her to come with us is already going to be a task without her feeling cornered. Plus, we don’t work together all that well yet, so it’s better if I do this on my own.”

Hana slowed a bit so they were walking side by side. “You always do that.”

Tsuna shot her a questioning look.

“You insist on doing things by yourself. You did it back then. I thought you might have outgrown it, being part of the IOC and all, but no, you’re still a monkey.”

Tsuna rolled his eyes playfully. “A monkey. Tsk, tsk, Hana, I too thought you may have matured, and yet you still have but a single insult.”

“But a single insult? What are you, Shakespeare?”

“Hey!” He exclaimed, laughing. “I’m cooler than Shakespeare.”

“Yeah right, next thing you know you’ll be spitting out ‘shall’s and ‘shan’t’s. You’ll be the garden variety, dollar store version of Shakespeare.”

Tsuna gasped, dramatically clutching his chest. “How couldst thee? I feeleth not only did insult but did betray, thee vile backstabb'r!”

She snickered at him, shaking her head.

_It’s so nice to be with an actual friend._

“I’ve missed you, monkey.”

Tsuna’s smile took on a softer edge. “Yeah, me too.”

Hana motioned for him to follow her.

“You’ll have to be careful when you talk to Kyoko.”

Tsuna nodded. “I know.”

Hana leveled him with a serious look. “I’m not joking, Tsuna. She’s good, you can’t hold back.” She paused, then rushed to say, “But don’t go all out! None of your fucking mind games. No permanent damage, you hear?”

Tsuna smiled a bit at her panicked expression, but nodded honestly. “I hear you. I promise she won’t come to any lasting harm.”

_Hopefully._

____________________________________________________________________________________

Their apartment was nothing like Tsuna imagined.

Not that he was imagining anything in particular, but a dark, cramped studio with a single bed wasn’t it.

Tsuna turned to give Hana a weird look after she let him in. She just looked back at him in confusion, seemingly not noticing the obvious.

_Wait, are they in a relationship? Did I miss something here?_

He observed the apartment quickly. The room was almost jam-packed with furniture, serving as a bedroom, living room and dining room all in one. There was a queen bed shoved against the far wall, access to it almost cut off due to the small collection of armchairs and a couch gathered at its foot. A little table and its set of chairs pushed into the corner of the room closest the kitchen door completed the picture.

“Kyoko.” Hana called out. “I’m back. I brought Tsuna, from the IOC, with me.”

Tsuna mentally shrugged, composing himself. Getting worked up over it wouldn’t help his case.

A young woman stepped into the main room.

“Welcome back.” She said to Hana. She turned to Tsuna and smiled kindly. “And you must be Tsuna. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Tsuna returned her smile easily. “Kyoko, right? The pleasure’s all mine.”

“Hey, Kyoko, what’re you making?” Hana asked as she followed the delicious smell into the kitchen.

“Cookies. Eat a few before you leave for work.”

Tsuna raised an eyebrow at that. “Work?” He asked. 

“Yes, she works nights at a nearby restaurant on top of bartending.” Kyoko explained

Tsuna nodded in understanding, smiling at her again.

“Please have a seat.” Kyoko said, motioning towards the small table, sitting down across from him once he was settled. “You wanted to talk to me.” She said, more of a statement than a question.

Tsuna nodded. “Yes.”

Hana stepped out of the kitchen, a stack of chocolate chip cookies in hand.

“I’m heading out. Be nice to each other. Bye Tsuna, bye Kyo-yo!”

The door slammed shut behind her.

Tsuna turned to Kyoko, amused.

“Kyo-yo?” He asked.

She let out a huff of laughter. “Yeah, she’s called me that ever since we went to Greece. We were in this little knick knack shop and they had this entire shelf of yo-yos. I tripped and knocked it off the wall.”

Tsuna snorted. “Smooth.”

They fell silent, observing each other quietly.

“You’re here to convince me to join the IOC.” Kyoko stated.

“I am.” Tsuna answered honestly. Honesty was important for trust. Trust was important for negotiation.

She pursed her lips. “And why the hell would I want that? The law and I don’t exactly get along. I’m certain you ran a background check on me. I’m plenty comfortable in the underworld, so why should I turn my back on that and go with you?”

That wasn’t good. A complete lack of trust from the get go was a doomed failure if not dealt with properly.

“I didn’t, actually.”

“What?” She asked.

“I didn't run a background check on you. I know almost nothing about you.”

Kyoko stared at him silently.

“Although, I wouldn’t mind learning a thing or two before we talk business.” Tsuna paused.

She eyed him critically. “I’ll only tell you about myself if you return the favor. Answer all your own questions.”

He smiled. “Fair enough.”

Deals were a good thing. In certain situations they could be impossible, but it meant Kyoko was willing to communicate.

Communication creates knowledge. Knowledge leads to a solid profile.

Kyoko nodded. “Ask your questions.”

“Where do you work?”

“A jewelry store.” She said.

He gave her a quick once over. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry except a ring on her right middle finger.

_A college ring?_

“Oh, really? What do you do?” Tsuna asked.

“I work in sales. I help the customers that come in the store find what they’re looking for.” She paused, then added, “and I convince them to buy expensive shit.”

Tsuna hummed, then told her, “My job description is Unit Chief, so I lead my team in the field to solve cases. Unfortunately, I’m more of a trainer right now.”

“Why’s that?”

He observed her quickly, it was most likely a ploy, but even so it was important for him to play along. 

He needed to establish as much of a relationship with her as possible which meant giving up more information than he received.

“Well, I’m not sure how much Hana told you.” He said with another smile. It was important to present himself as easy going and friendly. Which required a bit of adjusting his vocabulary. He needed to speak to her as he’d speak to a friend. She should think of him as approachable. “I was actually only recently appointed as Unit Chief of the BAU. Which is the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Thing is I’m supposed to be picking up dangerous criminals, like Reborn if you’ve heard of him. None of them have any idea how to profile. At least not to solve an investigation, you know?”

She stared at him, eyes wide. “Did you just say _Reborn_ is on your team?”

He laughed. Between having a unit of ex cons and having won over Reborn, the latter was the weirdest. “Yep. Reborn is a part of my unit.”

Kyoko looked completely flabbergasted. “How’d that happen?”

“I broke him out of prison.”

_She’s good. You’re off topic, don’t get carried away._

Kyoko sent him a look. “Breaking the Greatest Hitman out of prison, how lawful of you.”

“Bleeding your clients dry, how helpful of you.” Tsuna returned easily.

She laughed softly. “That’s true.”

He grinned. She wasn’t trying to change the topic back, that meant she was willing to give more information. However, they were clearly still playing in her court. 

She could stop cooperating whenever she wanted. He needed to get her worked up, get her talking about something that would make her forget their situation. For that to happen he needed to know her better. He needed to find the right buttons to push.

“Can I ask why you chose to work at a jewelry store? From what Hana tells me you’re really good at what you do. She said you could’ve chosen anywhere, so why there?. ” Tsuna asked.

Kyoko smiled, but her eyes went, almost unnoticeably, dark. “I was walking back from the grocery store, and I passed it. I recognized the name so I stepped inside, and asked about the place. I found out the owners–”

There. A small wisp of anger flashed across her face. It was quickly smoothed away and replaced with a fake smile. _The owners, huh?_

“–lived in the same town I grew up in and the company was a huge chain. They had an opening, so I took it as a sign and applied.”

“It’s always great when those things work out, like the universe is extending an offering for all the times it fucked you over.” He said humorously.

Her responding laugh was sharp. “Exactly.” 

She didn’t seem to be aware of the crack in her mask. The strangely vindictive light in her eyes and the satisfied edge to her smile stayed in place.

The illusion had wavered. Which meant he’d found the sore spot he was looking for.

Now all he had to do was pry it open.

“And what about you?” She asked, reminding him of their agreement.

“Ah, right. Well, my choice of a career had more to do with my father.” He told her. “He raised me in the Mafia, By the time I needed a job, my skill set dictated I would either continue as a mafioso or join law enforcement.”

She nodded understandingly. “Your father raised you, then?”

_Not falling for it this time, Kyoko._

“He taught me everything I know. What about you? You said you were raised in the same area as the owners of your company. Where was that?”

“It’s a small town in Northern Japan called Namimori.”A small frown grew on her face at the mention of her hometown. For a moment, she looked like she was far away before snapping back to reality and fixing the chip in her mask. “You’re Japanese, aren’t you? Did you grow up there too?”

“No, actually. I was raised on the road, and Dad never took me. I didn’t go until I started working for the IOC.” He paused, reminding himself to stay on her. “How was it growing up?”

There it was again, that flicker of heat. Of resentment.

_Interesting._

She smiled at him, though it came off as more of a grimace than anything.

“It was good.” She said, voice slightly strained. Tsuna observed the tap of her index finger on the table.

_She’s not as careful when you brush up against sensitive topics._

“Would you like any cookies?” She asked, standing. “Or some tea?”

He smiled back at her politely. “I’ll have both, thank you.”

Kyoko nodded and disappeared into the kitchen.

Tsuna looked after her. She knew he’d cornered her, and was holding herself back. Trying not to give too much away. She didn’t know how much she’d already let slip. 

_Not breaking_ , he reminded himself, _You’re just trying to get through her mask. She needs to stay unbroken._

The whistling of the teapot brought him out of his thoughts. A few moments later Kyoko appeared holding a plate with cookies and two mugs. She set them down in front of him and took a seat.

Tsuna noticed a fly buzzing over her head. It landed in her hair so he reached forward and shooed it away. He only caught Kyoko’s suppressed flinch out of the corner of his eye.

He smiled at her, retracting his hand and pretending he hadn’t noticed. “Sorry, there was a fly.”

“Oh.” She said, fingers tightening over the edge of the table.

He glanced around the room, just now noticing how overly organized the space was.

_Huh. I think I get it now._

Tsuna took one of the mugs and took a tiny sip of the tea. 

Green tea.

“You do like green tea, right? I guess I should have asked.”

“It’s a bit bitter for me.” Tsuna admitted. “But I like it.” He took a large gulp to prove his point. Kyoko nodded, satisfied. Tsuna fought hard not to grimace. Ok, maybe he didn’t like it. Bitter things just didn’t work for him. Hell, he could barely even drink coffee without adding like 5 teaspoons of sugar and one hell of a lot of cream.

After a minute of silence Kyoko spoke up. “Where were we?”

Tsuna smiled at her politely. “We were talking about your revenge on your parents.”

She completely froze, her eyes going wide.

“What?” She asked, voice almost a whisper.

Tsuna gave her a long look. “You’re good, Kyoko. It’s just that I’m better.”

Her stunned look gave way to anger. “How– You said you knew nothing about me!”

Tsuna sighed, holding up a hand to stop her tirade.

“I was telling the truth when I said I knew almost nothing about you. Anything I know now is something I learned while we were talking ”

She stared at him stiffly, saying nothing. He continued.

“Would you like examples? I can give you some. I’ll even tell you how I knew.” He said calmly. “You grew up in an abusive home. Your parents weren’t around much, but when they were they beat you and your brother. I know because you flinched when I went to shoo away the fly.”

“It’s a normal reaction to flinch when someone has their hand in your face.” Kyoko argued.

“True.” Tsuna conceded. “But you flinched when I was raising my hand, before I reached towards you.” He cocked his head to the side, staring at her intensely. “Your apartment’s very organized.”

“So?” She asked bitterly.

“It’s not just organized, it’s immaculate. Like you obsessively clean it everyday. That’s a long term indicator of past abuse and neglect.”

“How do you know it’s not Hana?”

Tsuna smiled amusedly. “Hana couldn’t handle a broom to save her life.”

A bit of mirth appeared in Kyoko’s eyes, but it quickly disappeared.

Tsuna went on. “I also know that your brother did his best to protect you from the abuse. He’d take beatings for you, and after he left you had no reason to stay, and knew you couldn’t take it without him there. So you ran away.”

Kyoko clenched her jaw.

“Well, I admit I cheated. I knew you ran away at sixteen and that your brother was two years older. But another thing that clued me in was that ring.” He said, motioning towards it. “It’s the only piece of jewelry you have on you. It could easily be explained away, save for that fact that it’s a college ring, and I’d bet anything that’s where your brother went to school.”

The way her face pinched was enough of an answer.

“You’re also wearing it on your middle finger.” He said. “Wearing a ring on your middle finger signifies responsibility. And considering that ring signifies your brother, it seems to me like you feel a responsibility towards him.”

“Maybe I didn’t know it had a special meaning.” Kyoko suggested cooly.

“Maybe.” Tsuna agreed. “But you’re a saleswoman at a jewelry store. I’d say it’s unlikely.”

She answered with silence, waiting for him to go on.

“Finally, you settled down with Hana and got a job at a chain of your parents jewelry company. Rings and Radiance, am I right?”

Kyoko pursed her lips. “How did you know my parents were the CEOs?”

“You need to work on your poker face. You looked angry when you brought up the owners.” He drew in a breath. _Now make her snap_. “And you’re trying to sabotage a fucking jewelry store? To what– make up for your brother’s beatings? Petty much?”

“It’s more than that.” Kyoko argued. “They’re bad people. They treated Ryohei and I like shit. They deserve some fucking karma.”

_So she talks when she’s pissed. I need to make her want to defend herself, then realize she can’t._

“Really?” Tsuna drawled. “From where I’m standing, you’re the shitty human being. You’re the one who ran away from home and sent a big fuck you to the law.”

Her face flushed angrily. “What?! They destroyed our childhood!”

“They’re horrible people. They ruined our childhood.” Tsuna imitated mockingly. “I get it. You had bad parents, and a shitty childhood so now you have the right the run around and fuck with other people’s heads. You’re traumatized, so now you’re justified whenever you feel like.”

“That's not what I said!” She yelled. “That’s–”

“What? That’s not what you said?” Tsuna asked disbelievingly. “That’s _exactly_ what I heard. You feel so entitled you don’t even bother to look past your own nose. You don’t bother to consider the other people who’d be affected by your little revenge plot, like the chain’s employees who’re just trying to earn a living. What about them?”

Kyoko opened her mouth to respond, but Tsuna cut her off.

“All those people working for the evil corporate office. All those people who’re gonna lose their jobs. Maybe one of them can’t pay his bills without that next paycheck. Maybe he’s even supporting a family. All of them will end up on the street. The father spending day after day under the beating sun _begging_ for others to take mercy on him. Hoping to earn a few pounds. The mother desperately searching for food for her children as they cry, and _cry_ , starving and dehydrating with how much they’re crying. That’ll be on _your_ hands.”

He sneered at her.

“But, oh, _right_. How could I have forgotten? Those people must all be evil since they worked for the tyrannical Sasagawas.” He said, sarcasm dripping from his words. “They’ll deserve every bad thing that you’ll do to them. Every one of them is a horrible person, and you are so brave to face those monsters so the rest of us don’t have to.” He leveled her with a cold look. “Truly admirable.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t have anything against them. I just want my parents to pay for what they did.”

Tsuna allowed himself to feel a pang of guilt for what he was about to do. Mind games were his specialty, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed breaking someone who didn’t deserve it.

“For what they did?” He repeated incredulously. “How about what _you_ did? How about your sins? The atrocities you’ve committed? Are we not going to talk about what a shit person you are? About all those times you let your brother take your beatings? You remember, don’t you? You sat and watched as he spent his blood, tears and dignity for you and did _nothing_?”

“No!” Kyoko sobbed. “I didn’t–”

“You didn’t even _care_ when your own brother was beaten black and blue, and you think some half baked revenge plan is gonna make up for it?”

“I–”

“Does your brother even _want_ you to avenge him? Or are you just using him as an excuse to do what you want?” Tsuna asked. “Because if you ask me, I’d _hate_ you. First he protected you with his body, and now when he thought he was through with you, you drag him back in because you just can’t let _go_.”

Kyoko broke down into heavy sobs, burying her face in her hands.

“The last thing he s-said to to me before leaving was to hang i-in there, and when the t-time came, be ready to _forgive_. He said I needed to forgive them.” She cried.

“And you’d deny your brother this one request after he protected you? How selfish.”

Another sob ripped through her. “I– I thought… I don’t know.” She seemed to realize. “I don’t know what I thought. He– he wouldn’t want _this_.”

This time Tsuna spoke to her softly, kindly. Now that he had torn her apart he would put her back together. Stronger this time.

“Kyoko. Your brother loves you, and he wouldn’t want this for you. He wouldn’t want you in the underworld, paranoid and constantly looking over your shoulder. I don’t know him, but I can guess that all he’s ever wanted was for you to be happy. Revenge _won’t_ make you happy. I am offering you a second chance at life. A chance to mold yourself into who you want to be. I know the law wasn’t there for you when you needed it, but I beg of you, no matter how much you resent us, no matter how badly we failed you, _please_ give yourself this chance.”

Kyoko locked eyes with him, the hurt and anger falling away alongside her tears. He reached out a hand and waited for her to let him pull her free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeeeee. Kyoko's on board!!! And goddamn Tsuna's not pulling any punches. He'll also probably drown in guilt later. As usual leave any likes/dislikes in the comments!


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okie! Just a bit late, but not too bad!
> 
> I did a lot of research for this chapter so here are some of the sources (they're really interesting if you want to look at them):  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHqbfJ3tq4Y
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jwUXV4QaTw
> 
> https://psychcentral.com/blog/differences-between-a-psychopath-vs-sociopath/#:~:text=Psychopaths%20tend%20to%20be%20more,much%20of%20a%20normal%20life.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macdonald_triad
> 
> https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-sociopath-380184
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/07/poison-is-a-womans-weapon/
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.

`Florence, Italy`   
`July 12, 2012`   
`7:40 PM`

“What exactly did you think you were doing, Agent Sawada?” asked Kawahira.

“You’ll have to be more specific, sir.”

Maybe being a smartass to an already irritated Section Chief wasn’t the most intelligent thing he could have done, but he could hardly say he regretted it. Especially not after watching Kawahira's face turn into an angry tomato. He swore he could see smoke rising from his ears.

“I’m talking about your impromptu trip to Manchester.” Kawahira grit out. “Why was I not informed?”

Tsuna suppressed a smile. “But you were informed, sir. I sent you an email.”

He watched as the angry flush spread down to Kawahira’s neck.

Was he turning purple? That wasn’t good.

“I apologize, sir.” He said finally. “It was a decision made on the spot. I saw something that needed my immediate attention. I thought emailing you would suffice.”

_That and I just didn’t want to deal with you._

“Was this _thing_ of extreme importance a new recruit?”

Tsuna nodded. “Yes, sir. An old friend and her companion.”

Kawahira arched a brow. “Who are they?”

“Hana Kurokawa, a former loan shark for the Ordina Famiglia, and Kyoko Sasagawa, a thief and con artist.”

Kawahira’s lips thinned. He looked like he wanted to argue about Tsuna’s choice in colleagues, but to the brunet’s immense surprise he just spit out a brusque, “Fine. Get out of my office.”

He turned to leave.

“Sawada. One last thing.”

Tsuna glanced back at Kawahira.

“Try to go around protocol one more time, and you’ll see how quickly your little circus falls apart.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`July 15, 2012`  
`8:36 AM`

“Now that we’re all here, we can get started.” Tsuna said. “This unit is now considered large enough to take on cases of our own, but before we do I’ll be training you in criminal profiling.”

He observed his team members from the front of the classroom. 

They were all paying attention. Good.

“We’ll start from the beginning, it’ll most likely take several months.” Tsuna paused. “Kyoko, Hayato. The two of you have specialty roles in this team that won’t necessarily require profiling. For the most part, you won’t be training with me. That said, when I do want you here, I’ll let you know. Is that clear?”

They nodded. Tsuna continued. “As profilers, our jobs are to primarily hunt down child abductors, serial rapists, and serial killers. We need to look at _how_ the crime was committed so we can understand _why_ the perpetrator did it. That _why_ will eventually lead us to UnSub.”

He took a deep breath. “Criminal profiling is essentially reverse engineering a crime. We look at four major categories: victimology, location, organization level, and pre and post offense behavior, all of which tell us something about the UnSub. If looked at through the correct lenses you can learn what kind of person the UnSub is. Every decision someone makes leaks information about them. And that information can be critical to the investigation.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`July 16, 2012`  
`8:39 AM`

“Victimology is also known as the study of the victim. It’s important to look at because the UnSub is _choosing_ these specific people, even if they themselves don't know it.” Tsuna explained. “We need to look at everything. Their occupation, their education, their routine, their hopes, their dreams. The whole nine yards.”

“Anything we can learn about the victim can be useful to us in some way. For example, one killer may murder prostitutes, people that have a high risk lifestyle. That sort of victimology doesn’t show as much confidence as someone who, say, kills married couples in their homes.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`July 17, 2012`  
`8:35 AM`

“Once again we see differences in personality based on decisions made. Did the UnSub choose a location in the middle of nowhere, or in a populated city? Did they ensure there were zero witnesses or did they kill in view of the masses? Consider what either place may tell you.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`July 25, 2012`  
`8:36 AM`

“Did the offender use a sniper rifle to attack from a distance, or did they use a knife to make it up close and personal? Think about what that says about either UnSub. The first might feel powerful for being able to take a life from afar, or maybe he just doesn’t enjoy the act of killing. Preferring to finish it from a distance where he doesn’t have to look too closely. The second may _want_ to watch. He may enjoy the thrill of taking a life.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`July 29, 2012`  
`8:41 AM`

“There are a lot of myths surrounding body language. People think that crossing your arms is a blocking behavior. That’s ridiculous. It’s actually a self soothing gesture. Other examples are self grooming, fidgeting, or touching your jaw. These are often seen as signs of deception but are, once again, just calming gestures.”

Tsuna pulled a chair up to the other side of the team’s table and took a seat. “When you’re looking at body language in an interrogation, your goal is not to immediately discern whether or not the interviewee is lying. Your goal is to note discomfort, whether or not this person feels threatened, and file those things away for later reference.”

He brought up a hand and pointed to the area over the bridge of his nose, between his eyebrows. “This is the glabella. It’s one of the first areas to show stress or discomfort. It’ll wrinkle and most of the time whoever it is won’t even notice. The same goes with the forehead, but that typically happens after the glabella.”

“When someone tilts their head, it typically means they’re comfortable, but depending on the situation, the straightening of their head can mean they feel threatened. All of these examples are facial, but that’s not always the case.” He paused. “Continuous displays of large movements can be adrenaline pumping through the body as the person prepares to lie or deceive someone.”

“Most people lean forward when they’re interested or pleased with something. The opposite is also true when they’re unhappy with what’s going on. People also tend to purse or thin their lips when displeased. And these are just the first few steps of reading body language.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`August 2, 2012`  
`8:25 AM`

“Less than 30% of crimes are committed by a woman.” said Tsuna. “That statistic is a rough number that may vary depending on the country or the offense, but it’s a good approximate calculation.”

“Because of the small percentage, we often assume the UnSub is male unless there’s evidence to support otherwise, or certain indicators are present. Those indicators often appear in serial murders and are either the method of killing or disposal. For example, poisoning of the victim is an approach mostly present in female killers. Certain things like water burials are also predominantly used by female UnSubs.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`August 7, 2012`  
`12:56 PM`

Tsuna pressed his keycard to the sensor, pausing for a moment until the door clicked open.

He stepped through the frame and shifted to the side so Hayato could enter after him.

Tsuna motioned at the room. “This is going to be your office.” He paused, watching Hayato take in the room with wide eyes. “It’s empty now, but today I’ll take you down to Resources. We’ll get a couple computer monitors and set them up where you want them. We’ll also need to get a communications device and a laptop.”

“Ok.” Hayato breathed. “Will I be doing a lot of work here?”

“For the most part, you’ll stay at headquarters when the team travels.” Tsuna explained. “Your job is to focus on obtaining information, and you can’t always do that at the police stations we’ll set up at. Plus, we don’t like to put our tech analysts in the line of fire. There’s always the possibility that the UnSub targets you, which we don’t want.”

Hayato looked a bit disappointed, but nodded understandingly. “So…” His expression brightened a bit. “Can I decorate?”

Tsuna laughed. “You can definitely decorate. I’ll help.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`August 8, 2012`  
`11:43 AM`

“What exactly is my job?” Kyoko asked. “I mean, I know that I’m the Liaison, but what does that mean?”

“Good question. Any time we need to talk to the media, you’ll be the one to make contact. There are things you can say and things you can’t that you’ll become very familiar with. A lot of times, we won’t want the press to know anything until after we’ve caught the UnSub. You’ll also be responsible for talking to the families and any person of interest.”

She looked confused. “Like, interviewing them?”

“Ah, no.” Tsuna said. “Although you’ll be present for interviews most of the time you’ll probably be in the room with Reborn, Hana or I. Your job is to gain rapport with them, make them trust you and get any information you can before we even have to interview them.”

Kyoko’s eyes sparkled. “That’s my specialty.”

Tsuna snorted. “Yeah, I noticed.”

“Will I have any responsibilities here? I know the rest of you have to do a lot of paperwork whenever we’re at headquarters, like filing reports of past cases and stuff. Do I do that as well?”

“Well, yes and no.” Tsuna said. “You’ll be doing a lot of paperwork, and you’ll have to turn in a report of any case we take on, but you won’t be doing the same work as the rest of us. You’ll be responsible for sorting through and selecting our cases.”

She nodded. “You’ll explain the criteria and everything, right?”

“I will.” He confirmed. He fell silent for a moment before remembering, “On top of all this, you’ll be getting an office. Let me show you now.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`August 10, 2012`  
`8:31 AM`  
``

“Most of the time when we deal with teams, there are only two of them: A dominant partner and a submissive partner. Typically the dominant is the one calling the shots, it’s his plan that’s being put into place, and the submissive’s just along for the ride. These dynamics carry over into larger groups as well, although it gets a bit more complicated.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`August 15, 2012`  
`8:47 AM`

“In the field, we’ll run into psychopaths and sociopaths fairly often, so it’s important you understand them. With both afflictions comes signs from early childhood. These signs can include, but are not limited, to the Macdonald Triad. This includes bed wetting, arson, and cruelty to animals.”

“There are four categories of behavioral problems that are common. Aggression to people or to animals, destruction of property, deception or theft, and serious violations of rules or the law. Psychopathy and sociopathy really boil down to different types of antisocial personality disorder.”

“Psychopaths tend to be more manipulative. They can be exceedingly charming, and can easily hold the illusion of a normal life. Psychopaths are often smart about minimizing their risk of being caught. They can and will follow societal standards when it fits their needs.”

“Sociopaths on the other hand tend to be more emotionally driven. Unlike psychopaths, sociopaths do have the ability, albeit weak,to feel empathy. They tend to be more prone to anger and are far more likely to fly off the handle and act recklessly.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`August 18, 2012`  
`12:45 PM`

Tsuna made his way to the courtyard, walking over to where his team was sitting, lunchbox in hand. 

He sat between Reborn and Hayato.

“I’m telling you pineapple doesn’t fucking belong on pizza.” Hana growled.

Hayato rolled his eyes. “I didn’t ask you, woman. It’s fucking delicious and your ignorant arguments won’t change that.”

Tsuna smiled, opening his lunch as Hana brought Kyoko in on the conversation, only to be betrayed.

“Reborn! Tsuna! Help me out here. C’mon!” Hana yelled hysterically.

Tsuna snorted. “I don’t like pizza. Pretty sure that doesn’t help.”

The group gasped, sending him scandalized looks.

“Who dropped you on your head as a child?” Reborn asked.

“Hey.” Tsuna protested. “Let me dislike pizza in peace.”

Hayato shook his head. “This is unacceptable. We have to help him.”

The group nodded in agreement.

Tsuna huffed, looking down at his lunch.

He blinked.

It was gone.

“Rebooooorrrrrnnnnnn!”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`August 21, 2012`  
`8:47 AM`

“When we look at the victims we need to look for trends. The similarities between them can tell us a lot. Sometimes we find that the victims are a surrogate for another individual. Finding the person the victims are meant to represent can lead us to the UnSub.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`August 30, 2012`  
`1:21 PM`

Tsuna rested his head on his arms, eyes closed.

It was hot, a lot hotter than it should be at the end of August.

He sighed. He knew the outdoor market was a bad idea, and should’ve pushed the team to choose something else to do on their day off.

Someone sat down next to him.

He opened an eye and squinted.

“Hayato.” He greeted. “Tired of walking around?”

“Yeah.”

Tsuna frowned. He sounded nervous.

The brunet sat up, observing him silently.

The hacker seemed to be working up the nerve to say something. He waited, no need to push.

“Tsuna.” Hayato said finally.

“Yes?”

“I– I’ve never really done this before because I’ve never had anyone to tell but… you’re my friend and I want you to know.”

Tsuna nodded. “What is it?”

“I’m– I’m gay.”

Tsuna blinked, then cracked a smile. “Oh. Same.”

Hayato stared at him, baffled. “Really?”

He laughed. “Yeah.”

Hayato sent him a relieved look. 

Tsuna grinned. “Yay, now we can talk about hot guys, and–” He cut himself off with a gasp. “Does this mean I can complain to you about how hot–”

“Reborn is?” Hayato finished, mirth dancing in his eyes.

“Yes!”

The hacker laughed. “It’s so annoying. Especially since we know what a total twatwaffle he can be.”

“Yes, oh my God! And sometimes you just look at him and you’re just like, wow, he’s beautiful. And you forget for a moment how irritating he is, and then he opens his mouth and you have to deal with whatever strange shit he’s come up with.”

“Finally, someone who understands my suffering.” Hayato said, wiping away fake tears.

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`September 2, 2012`  
`8:54 AM`

“By looking at the location and range of the UnSub’s crimes we can develop something we call a geographic profile. It’s an area in which the UnSub lives or is located.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`September 5, 2012`  
`9:02 AM`

“Hayato, stop raising your damn hand! This isn’t a fucking elementary school class!”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`September 10, 2012`  
`8:27 AM`

“When we’re out working a case we have to be careful of the media. It’s essential we avoid information being released unless we decide that, based on the profile, it will help the situation. This is because, unfortunately, media coverage can provoke more violence from the UnSub. When we do have a press conference, it will be led by Kyoko and we’ll need to be extremely careful about what we say so we avoid the UnSub’s triggers.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`September 12, 2012`  
`6:43 PM`

Tsuna was sure this wasn’t a good idea.

All five of them. Off duty. In one place. In public.

Yeah, right.

He sighed, resigning himself to a long night of running damage control. Someone slung an arm over his shoulder.

He looked up at Reborn, raising an eyebrow.

The hitman smiled teasingly. “Keep frowning and you’ll get wrinkles.”

“Come up with something more original.” He said, rolling his eyes.

Reborn made a show of thinking about it for a minute, then turned to him. “Keep walking and you’re bound to trip.”

Tsuna gasped, offended and smacked him across the chest. “I’m your superior, you’re supposed to respect me!”

“I can hardly hold you in high regard when you’re so short.”

Tsuna glared at him. “I’m 5’7”, you–”

“Hey, monkeys! Move your asses! I’d like to eat sometime in the next century.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`September 15, 2012`  
`8:57 AM`

“A spree killer is a serial killer who’s kill rate has accelerated exponentially and is on the run. They’re dangerous because they’re less predictable and cause more loss of life. Spree killing is also a sign of devolution.”

“Devolution is a process a killer goes through when the stress gets to them. It can cause a spree, more reckless behavior, and it can cause them to approach their endgame. On one hand this means they can be easier to catch since they aren’t being careful. Unfortunately, the price is steep.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`September 21, 2012`  
`5:11 PM`

Tsuna walked into the grocery store, trying to make out the things they needed through Hayato horrendous handwriting.

He squinted. “Ok. It says we need popcorn, Sprite, and twisters. Can you go grab the Sprite?”

No answer.

He looked up, frowning.

Tsuna froze for a moment before snapping into action. He looked around frantically.

Oh, _God_. He’d lost Reborn. The Greatest fucking Hitman was missing.

He ran back towards the door, glancing down the street both ways.

“He was just here.” Tsuna said to himself, breathlessly. “He was right behind me.”

Where did he go?

Was this his big plan? Was he finally making his escape?

Granted, in the few months they’d been together Reborn hadn’t made a single attempt. But he could’ve just been biding his time, _right_?

Tsuna took off down the street, looking into alleys as he passed them by.

Now that he thought about it Reborn hadn’t taken his phone when they left. He still had the tracking chip in his arm, but he could easily dig it out with a knife.

He paused at a busy intersection. Still no sign of him.

_Maybe he went the other way._

Tsuna returned to the grocery store, preparing to call Hayato before looking around more when he saw him.

He stopped in his tracks, eyes narrowing.

_Yep, that’s him._

Tsuna glanced up at the sign. A pet store?

What the fuck?

He stalked into the shop, making his way over to Reborn, breathless.

“Where the hell did you go?” He whispered, making his irritation clear.

Reborn turned to look at him. “I saw him through the window.”

Tsuna stared at him, then glanced down at the counter.

There, in a small terrarium, was a little chameleon.

“Are you shitting me?” Tsuna deadpanned.

Reborn looked a bit offended by his response. “Look at him, he’s adorable.”

Tsuna looked back down at the chameleon. He sighed. “What’s his name?”

“Leon.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`September 23, 2012`  
`7:04 AM`

Tsuna growled, pissed, as he glared at Reborn from across the table.

“How dare you? What the fuck gives you the right?!”

The hitman glowered back at him. “How dare I? You’re the one in the wrong here. You’re fucked in the head.”

“Excuse me? Fucked in the head? Don’t talk to me like that. Mind your fucking manners!”

“Mind my manners, huh?” Reborn said, mockingly. “What’re you gonna do? Are you gonna sit me down and lecture me, _mom_? Assign me a few more pushups in conditioning? _Whatever_ , I’m just trying to help you.”

“Fuck off, Reborn. I just don’t fucking like coffee and you can’t change that!”

“Screw you, Tsuna. Coffee is the liquid of the gods, I will make you like it.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`September 29, 2012`  
`12:21 PM`

Tsuna allowed himself a brief moment to wonder how he’d gotten here.

He sighed as Kyoko handed him another shopping bag.

All he wanted was to sit and eat his lunch. He didn’t ask to be dragged to the mall and turned into a coat hanger.

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`October 3, 2012`  
`2:45 PM`

Tsuna watched closely as Hana and Reborn made their way through the structure, practice guns up and earpieces in.

Hayato watched them through the monitors and gave a steady stream of instructions from his spot beside Tsuna.

They watched as Reborn took pointe and Hana easily fell in behind him.

The pair moved swiftly through the mock home, taking out to cardboard targets with seamless teamwork.

A far cry from their first run through.

Tsuna smiled. They were getting close now. Soon they’d be able to get to work.

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`October 10, 2012`  
`11:54 AM`

Tsuna chewed his sandwich slowly, watching as Kyoko and Hana left for the bathroom.

Hayato sighed deeply. “When do you think they’ll finally get together?”

Tsuna sent him a weird look. “What do you mean?” He asked.

The hacker blinked at him. “Kyoko and Hana. When do you think they’ll start dating?”

He stared at him, then turned to look at Reborn. Both were watching him intensely.

“Um… Aren’t they already together?”

Reborn snorted, shaking his head as Hayato just stared at him in disbelief.

“Don’t tell me–” The hacker started. “You’ve been oblivious to the sexual tension this whole time!”

Tsuna winced ears ringing from the silveret’s sudden shriek.

Reborn snickered at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be the omniscient profiler?”

“Hey.” He whined. “C’mon, guys.”

Hayato picked up a french fry and threw it at him. “I can’t believe this. My best friend left me to suffer alone for _months._ ”

“A true betrayal.” Reborn agreed.

Tsuna pouted.

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`October 14, 2012`  
`8:23 AM`

“People often ask whether it’s nature or nurture that makes a killer. It’s both. Jim Clemente of the FBI once said something I really agree with. ‘Genetics loads the gun, personality and psychology aim it, and your experiences pull the trigger.’”

____________________________________________________________________________________

`Florence, Italy`  
`October 18, 2012`  
`7:20 AM`

The smack of a folder against the table rang through the room.

Tsuna smiled at his team proudly.

“We’ve got our first case.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! What are your thoughts? What did you like/dislike about this chapter?


	11. A Million Versions of You Pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeey! Excited to be back with another update! The first chapter of their first case. Enjoy~
> 
>  **NOTE:** There is referenced rape in this chapter so if that makes you uncomfortable the next few chapters may not be for you. I will not outright write it into the story, but it will be alluded to.
> 
> Please note that my editor hasn't quite gotten to this yet so it may be a bit rough in some places.
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.

`Los Angeles, USA`  
`October 18, 2012`  
`6:10 AM`

A young woman stumbled into the street. It was late and a bit chilly, and she really wished she had her jacket, but she’d lost it earlier in the evening.

The party had been massive, plenty of drinks and dancing. Usually she didn’t go to these sorts of things, but her friend, Lily, had _insisted_ that anyone who knew anyone would be there.

What was she supposed to say to that?

Now, though, she was regretting giving into her friend’s requests. She’d disappeared quickly after the drinking started, no doubt going to hookup with some guy. And that wasn’t a line _she_ was quite willing to cross, which meant getting left to her own devices.

She sighed, stumbling across the sidewalk. The dorm wasn’t too far, and even if she was completely shitfaced she’d lived there long enough to be able to find it.

Her foot caught on an edge in the cement, sending her sprawling over the ground. She hissed, knee aching.

She brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked down. It was only a scrape.

“Are you alright, miss?”

She jumped, looking up at the speaker. She blinked, then smiled politely.

“Yes, I’m alright. I just took a little spill.” She slurred.

“You look a bit drunk, do you need help getting home?”

“Nooo.” She drew out. “I’ll be okay.”

“Well, here, at least let me help you up.”

Once she was on her feet her helper gave her a once over.

“You sure you don’t want help?”

She thought about it this time. Walking to the dorm like this would take forever, some help wouldn’t hurt. Right?

“Maybe a little help.” She said, and received a kind smile in return.

“Alright then. Let’s get going.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Meet 20 year old Sophia Carter. Student at University of Western California majoring in Nursing.” Kyoko typed something into the computer, showing her picture on the big screen so everyone could see it. “And this is 21 year old Olivia Torres. She’s a student at University of California, Los Angeles majoring in Visual Arts.”

The rest of the team observed the two girls closely. They were both young Caucasian women with long medium brown hair and pretty blue eyes. From the pictures, both women appeared to be fairly short and petite.

“Within the last two weeks both of them were abducted and murdered.” Kyoko said, now showing the crime scene photos of their bodies. “They were found in dumpsters on opposite ends of the city, three days after they went missing.”

“Whoever did this was brutal with them. They’re both completely covered in injuries.” Reborn observed.

“Yeah, I’d say torture could be in the picture here.” Hana agreed.

“The local police said as much when we talked.” Tsuna chimed in. “They’re gonna let us know when the autospies are complete.”

Hana nodded. “Well, regardless, with that level of violence our UnSub has definitely got some deep seated anger.”

“And both these women look pretty similar. He could be killing surrogates.” Reborn added.

“Yes.” Kyoko cut in. “And this last victim further proves that theory. This is Isabella Scott, she’s an Accounting student at University of Southern California and she was abducted sometime last night. The local PD thinks she may be connected.”

Tsuna stood. “Well, until we have evidence that says otherwise we need to operate as if she’s still alive. Wheels up in thirty, we’ve got a long flight ahead of us.”

(Hana stopped in her tracks as they exited the back of the building, turning to look at him incredulously. “Wait, since when do we have a fucking jet?”

Tsuna laughed. “Since the director handed me a massive budget and told me to spend it on whatever I found most useful.”)

____________________________________________________________________________________

“It looks like both murdered victims were abducted pretty late at night.” Reborn commented, flipping through the case file. “Sophia was at a study group until about 11, and Olivia and Isabella were both at parties.”

“True.” Tsuna said. “The UnSub could have a job or some other responsibility that keeps him occupied all day.”

“Or it could be that this is the easiest time to take them.” Hana suggested. “They were all taken on their college campuses, it’d be pretty crowded during the day.”

Tsuna nodded. “Could be both. Also, this seems a bit too coincidental. All these women look very similar, I find it hard to believe the UnSub just happened to stroll by as they were walking home alone late at night.”

“Stalking could be involved.” Reborn said thoughtfully. “The UnSub would have to have an effective way to find women of his type and find out where they go to school.”

“His job perhaps?” Hana said. “He could work in one of the admissions departments.”

Tsuna made a noise of disagreement. “Probably not in admissions. They’d only have access to students in their university, but all three women attended different colleges.”

The laptop on the table pinged, and Hayato appeared on the screen.

“Hey, guys. The autopsy reports came in.” The hacker said. “All of Sophia and Olivia’s wounds were pre mortem. They had shallow lacerations all over their bodies, as well as bruises, whip marks, and electrical burns. They were also raped repeatedly.” Hayato grimaced. “The coroner says the cause of death was strangulation.”

The profilers exchanged looks.

“I suggest getting some rest on the way.” Tsuna said. “Because we’re gonna hit the ground running.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

She woke up gasping for breath. She coughed, fighting to sit up only to stop when a sharp pain in her head made her stomach turn and vision blur.

Isabella winced, reaching up slowly to touch the back of her skull. She let out a small whimper when her fingertips came back painted red.

She sniffed, tears pricking her eyes as she looked around frantically. She was in an unfamiliar bedroom tucked under the covers. The light was off and the window was boarded up.

“Hello?” She called out hoarsely. “Is anyone there?”

There was no response.

She sobbed, trying to sit up again.

“Hello?!” She screamed. “Please! Someone help me!”

Quick footsteps approached the room. She flinched as the door swung open.

She sucked in a sharp breath, trying in vain to back up further away from the door.

“You’re finally awake.”

Isabella sobbed harder, tears streaming down her face. “No!” She yelled. “No, stay away from me!”

“Come on, Lisa. Don’t be like that. Let’s get you clean, and patched up.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

The speakers crackled to life.

“Prepare for landing.” The pilot’s voice sounded through the plane.

Tsuna reached over and shook Reborn awake. He grumbled softly and flicked up his fedora.

“We’re about to land.” Tsuna informed him. “Wake up Hana. I’m gonna go find Kyoko.”

He caught Reborn’s nod out of the corner of his eye as he stood. Tsuna made his way to the front of the plane. Finding Kyoko hunched over the tiny kitchenette’s sink, empty glass in hand.

“Hey.” He said softly.

She turned, offering a strained smile. “Hey.”

“What’s up?” He asked.

She pursed her lips, and shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

He sighed. “You know compressing your lips is a sign of displeasure or stress.”

She stared at him for a moment, then huffed. “Heh. Right. Profiler.”

Tsuna smiled apologetically.

Kyoko glanced at the ground. “I’m scared that I’ll mess up.”

He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

Her mask shifted, letting her distress shine through. “If I can’t do my job, you can’t do yours. What happens if I lose control? Let my mask drop, and my act crumbles, and fuck up the trust I garnered. What happens if they see through me like you did? What if–”

“Kyoko.” Tsuna interrupted sharply. “I want you to listen to me very closely. Alright?”

She nodded, all watery eyes and downturned lips.

“You are fucking incredible.”

Her eyes widened.

“You are one of the most amazingly talented people I have ever met.” He told her firmly. “The first time we talked I was overly cruel to you. I may have apologized and been forgiven by you, but I might never forgive myself for toppling your confidence.” He paused.

“You have a natural ability with people like I’ve never seen before. You’re a fantastic actor, you always seem to know what people want and how to exploit that to get what you need. And the _only_ reason I came out on top of our match is because I have an equal ability to pick people apart. One that I’ve had a lot more time to hone. It’s not _fair_ to lower your opinion of your ability because of a single circumstance. You lost. That’s ok. Be better next time.”

Kyoko stared at him, eyes wide. 

He grinned at her. “Sorry. Got a little carried away.”

She snorted, breaking into a fit of giggles. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“Yeah, so I’ve been told.”

Kyoko took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

“Sure thing.” He said with a nod. “Let’s go sit down. I have some last minute instructions to give.”

“Hey.”

They turned. Reborn was leaning against the doorway.

“Are you guys gonna stand here till you wear holes through the floor or join us so we can talk about what to do when we’re on the ground?”

“Yeah, yeah. We’re coming.” Tsuna told him, laughing lightly.

Reborn nodded, smirking. “No dawdling, Chief.”

He rolled his eyes and brushed past him. 

Hana nodded at him sleepily when he sat down across from her. Reborn and Kyoko joined them a few moments later.

Tsuna looked them over quickly. Kyoko looked better. Hana and Reborn didn’t seem worried at all, the cocky bastards.

“Kyoko, when we land I want you to come with me to the station, we’ll meet with the Police Chief and get set up.” Tsuna said, getting down to business. “Reborn, I want you to go down to the latest crime scene. Hana, go visit the coroner, they should have a more detailed report ready for you.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Isabella stood stiffly in the kitchen, smelling of unfamiliar soap and wearing clothes that weren’t hers.

She blinked back tears, trying not to think of how embarrassed and vulnerable she’d felt when she was made to stay still as she was bathed by foreign hands.

“Lisa.” 

She looked up, ignoring the way the bandages around her head shifted uncomfortably.

“That’s not my name.” She whispered softly, voice breaking.

“What?” Came the sharp reply.

She flinched. “I– My name is Isabella.”

“No. You are Lisa. Lisa Green. My girlfriend.”

“I–”

“You. Are. Lisa.”

Isabella’s mouth snapped shut, body shaking uncontrollably. She swallowed, then nodded vigorously.

“Here.” The voice was soft again. She was pushed into a chair. “I’ll cook you something. I know how hungry you get this time of day.”

She sat at the table, frozen as her companion brandished a knife and got to work.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna stepped into the police station, Kyoko at his side.

A man broke off of the small group of officers near the desks. He approached them quickly and stuck out a hand for Tsuna to shake.

“Hey. You must be the IOC agents. I’m the Police Chief, Thomas Phillips.”

“Nice to meet you Chief Phillips. I’m SSA Sawada, and this is Kyoko Sasagawa, our Liaison.”

Phillips nodded to her. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like we’ll be needing your services this time around Ms. Sasagawa.”

“What do you mean?” Tsuna asked.

The Police Chief grimaced. “The press caught wind of a potential serial killer and went wild with it. They’re blowing it way out of proportion, and to be honest I’ve no idea how to deal with this.”

“Don’t worry.” Tsuna told him calmly. “We’ll handle it. If you’d set up a press conference for us we’ll do the rest.”

Phillips nodded. “I’ll have one of my men set that up right away. For now, though, let me show you the conference room. It’d be a good place for you to set up.” The Police Chief motioned for them to follow him. “We’ve already interviewed Sophia Carter and Olivia Torres’ friends respectively. We can call them back if you need us to. Isabella’s friend, Lucy Hill, was the one who went to the party with her. She’s supposed to arrive within the hour.”

Tsuna nodded thanking him as they ducked into the conference room.

Kyoko gave him a look. “Man, I didn’t know I was gonna get thrown to the sharks on our first case.” She joked.

Tsuna placed his hands on her shoulders. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Kyoko grinned. “Because I’m a badass?”

Tsuna smiled back. “Exactly.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Reborn stepped out of the car, tilting his fedora to shade his eyes from the sun.

The area of the University of Southern California campus where Isabella was estimated to have gone missing was closed off and shut down for the day.

The house where the party had taken place was currently being searched by the local PD, but that wasn’t what he was interested in.

Reborn turned away from the house and instead started walking towards where he was told Isabella’s dorm was.

The path was close to the road for the most part, but there were a few sections where it curved into the trees and out of view.

Reborn paused, glancing up and noting the street cams that spanned this section of the path. He pulled out his phone.

Hayato picked up on the first ring.

“Hello to you, sir. What can I do for you?”

“Hey, I’m on the path between the party house and Isabella’s dorm. This section is right on–” He leaned to the side a bit, trying to read the street sign. “Queens Street. I noticed there’s a few street cams. Look at them for me?”

“You got it.” Hayato said immediately. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I’ve got something.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Unfortunately we weren’t able to pull any DNA off either of the bodies.” The coroner told Hana coolly. “Normally in situations like these where the victims have been raped, we’d be able to find something. Not here. He would’ve had to be really careful, and have cleaned them afterwards.”

Hana nodded. “Interesting. That’s criminal sophistication you wouldn’t see after just two murders.”

The coroner pursed his lips. “Right. Well. I wouldn’t know much about that. What I can tell you is the torture and rape happened fairly close to time of death. A day, maybe?” He motioned her forward, pointing at the discolored mark around Olivia’s neck. “This mark is from some sort of belt or strap. Whatever it was it’s what he used to strangle them.”

“Makes sense.” Hana commented. “It’s a lot easier to use a tool, like a belt, to cut off airflow. It takes more strength than one would think to use your hands.”

“One last thing.” The coroner said. “I found a wound on the back of both of their heads. Looks like blunt force trauma, which isn’t consistent with the rest of the torture. It’s also a bit older than those wounds. Could be what he did to subdue them when kidnapping them.”

Hana hummed thoughtfully.

The coroner continued. “Those wounds looked like they received treatment at some point. Not professional by any means, but they weren’t bleeding, nor were they lined with dried blood when the bodies arrived here. It looked like someone had cleaned them.”

Hana blinked. “Huh. Thanks, Doc. This is really helpful.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Isabella lay in the bed stiffly.

She wanted more than anything to scream and cry and move out from under the arm around her waist. She didn’t like the breath tickling the back of her neck and definitely not the forehead pressed into her hair.

But there was nothing she could do.

Of course there were points throughout the day where she’d considered escape. Desperately trying to think up the correct actions to make it past her captor and back outside. But every time she’d remember the scary look she received when she was told to behave.

She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt if she resisted she’d die.

At this point, she just prayed someone was looking for her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. Yeah...
> 
> What are your thoughts? Likes/dislikes? Let me know!


	12. A Million Version of You Pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK!!!!!!!!!!!! \\(0o0)/
> 
> ...hey guys. So, sorry that I've been gone so long. *sigh* For some reason I really struggled to write this chapter, so I kept putting it off, and before I knew it 3 MONTHS had passed! Sorry, again. But, yeah, this is here now!!! So you don't need to wait anymore. Enjoy!
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.
> 
> WARNING: This chapter contains heavy themes of physical and sexual assault. If that is something you aren't comfortable with then please either don't read this chapter or skip around that parts that include it (there is a page break in front of every one of those parts). I don't explicitly write out most of it, but please proceed with caution.

`Los Angeles, USA`  
`October 19, 2012`  
`7:01 AM`

“When I was at the crime scene I noticed a few street cams.” Reborn said. “I had Hayato take a look.”

“Yep,” Hayato cut in, voice coming from the hitman’s phone, “I checked out the footage within the general time frame of her abduction, and– here. I just sent it to you, Tsuna. Scroll through to about 6:10 AM.”

Tsuna pulled out his phone, scrolling through the video, and then propping it up on the windshield so they could all see.

_Everything was still for a moment before a girl came stumbling into view. She was clearly drunk, couldn’t seem to walk in a straight line._

_She didn’t have a jacket, and her shoelaces were untied._

_A car was cruising slowly behind her, clearly following her, but she didn’t seem to notice. It was a dark red SUV without a license plate, tinted windows keeping the driver hidden._

_The woman stumbled out of the camera’s view, and the car followed._

“The next cam doesn’t pick them up, so he must’ve taken her between them,” Hayato explained.

Hana nodded, crossing her arms. “Tch. Of course, he wouldn’t abduct her on camera. He’s too sophisticated of an UnSub for that.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Hayato interrupted. “I’m sorry, did you just call this guy _sophisticated_? What is he from the 1800s?”

Reborn rolled his eyes. “It refers to the term criminal sophistication. Meaning he’s good at cleaning up after himself. You’d know that if you hadn’t slept through class that day.”

A sharp gasp crackled from the phone. “You _promised_ you wouldn’t–”

“That’s enough.” Tsuna interrupted before they could get into it. “What did you get on the car?”

“Right. So,” The hacker cleared his throat, clearly still embarrassed. “Since it doesn’t have a license plate I had to track it across the city cams to get a good picture of the make and model on the back. I used that to filter the recent missing vehicle reports and turns out, it was stolen from a car dealership called Choice Vehicles a few days ago. A patrol car found it last night. It was completely wrecked on the side of the highway.”

They exchanged troubled looks.

“Have you looked into the dealership?” Hana asked.

“Duh,” Hayato said flatly. “Over the past few months, they’ve had several cars go missing, all of which were found in bad shape. I’m looking into the business for anything shady, but nothing’s turned up so far.”

Tsuna frowned. “Alright. Thanks, Hayato. Keep it up.”

“Yeah. I’ll keep looking, call me if anything turns up.”

There was a quiet click as the call disconnected, leaving them in silence. Tsuna grinned. “Great. We’ve got another lead.”

“Agents.” They turned to see Phillips approaching them. “Sophia Carter’s father is here.”

Tsuna exchanged a look with Kyoko before turning back to the police chief. “We’ll be right there, thank you.”

Phillips nodded, making his way back inside.

Tsuna turned. “Reborn, Hana, I want the two of you to go over to Choice Vehicles and see what you can find out.”

They nodded. He turned to Kyoko, smiling gently. “When we go in, try to relax. This is your first case, so I’m not expecting you to do much. Do your best to get familiar with the process and provide comfort where it’s needed.”

“Sure, Chief.” She said jokingly, smiling back at him.

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Hello, Mr. Carter–”

____________

“–Ms. Wright, Mr. Taylor–”

____________

“–thank you for coming in today,” Kyoko said softly. “I’m Kyoko Sasagawa, and this is our Unit Chief Tsunayoshi Sawada.”

The man before them looked tired. His shoulders were slumped as if he could barely find the strength to keep himself up, and his skin was pale, almost sallow, with dark circles under his eyes.

____________

“–please come in and take a seat,” Kyoko said, ushering them into the station.

Tsuna observed them grimly. These kids were only a few years younger than them, and it was a damn shame they needed to be exposed to some of the same shit.

____________

“It’s nice to meet you,” Carter said, voice trailing off at the end.

Kyoko took a small step forward. “Please come this way, sir.”

She led him to the conference room, pulling out a chair for him. Tsuna followed behind them, quickly flipping over the case board before Carter could see.

Tsuna sat across the table from Carter and Kyoko, offering the grieving father a sympathetic smile. “We understand that this is very difficult for you,” He started. “And that you’ve already answered the police’s questions, however, we’d really appreciate it if you’d answer some of our own.”

____________

“Would that be ok?” Kyoko followed up gently.

The college students exchanged glances before nodding somberly, reaching for each other comfortingly.

“We’ll answer any questions you have,” Taylor affirmed determinedly.

____________

Carter nodded.

“Ok, first, is there anyone you can think of that disliked Sophia? Any enemies, exes, or even someone she just happened to mention more than usual?” Tsuna asked.

Carter was already shaking his head before he finished his question. “No. No, my girl was… She was very sweet. Sophia was a bit shy so she didn’t have many friends, but the people that did know her loved her. She– She was always wanting to help her friends and anyone she could, that’s why she–” He took a sharp intake of breath. “She was majoring in nursing because she wanted to do something to ease others’ pain. There’s no one who…”

____________

Wright took a deep breath. “No. Sophia was kind to everyone. She always wanted to help people in any way she could. She used to tell me that’s why she was majoring in nursing.”

“And she didn’t have any exes,” Taylor added. “She’d never dated before.”

“She’s never dated before?” Tsuna noted, encouraging him to continue.

“No.,” Wright said. “She was always so focused on school. Her father couldn’t pay for her to go to college so she had to work hard to get herself a scholarship. She never really had time for herself, and she was getting really stressed, so I–”

She cut herself off, hand coming up to press against her mouth as if trying to keep herself from crying.

Taylor glanced at her but continued. “We suggested she start looking for someone. I mean, she had us, but we thought if she could just get out and meet a good guy she would be a lot happier.”

____________

Tsuna took a deep breath. “You mentioned that Sophia didn’t have many friends?”

“Yes.” Carter nodded. “She was very shy. After her mom died… Well, she found it harder to socialize and it never really got better. I tried to encourage her to make more friends, but I didn’t want to force her.”

“Did she ever date?”

Carter shook his head. “No, never. Though she told me she was looking for someone.” He gave a pained smile, tears swimming in his eyes. “She always wanted to fall in love and start a family.”

____________

“She downloaded Tinder since she didn’t really have time to get out and meet anyone,” Wright said quietly.

“She never met anyone, though,” interjected Taylor. “She had literally downloaded it a week before– Well… And she had just barely filled out her profile.”

Tsuna hummed thoughtfully. “Do you know what she was doing the night she was abducted?”

Both nodded. “She was with us,” Wright spoke up. “We were having a study session for a big test coming up.” She took a deep breath, motioning towards Taylor. “Noah decided to come over and get some studying done as well, but we ended up goofing off so it went late. She–” Her voice quivered slightly. “She went to walk back to her dorm, but it’s on the opposite side of campus and we weren’t so sure… We offered to walk her–”

Wright sobbed quietly, tilting her head so she could hide her face in Taylor’s shoulder.

“She said she’d be fine on her own.” Taylor finished, tears shining in his eyes. “I- Is this– We s-should’ve–”

Kyoko shifted closer to both of them, pulling them close. “Trust me when I say that this isn’t your fault. There was no way you could’ve known this would happen, and you did nothing wrong.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Isabella was yanked from sleep by an incessant beeping off to her right. She furrowed her brow in slight confusion. Her alarm didn’t sound like that.

She opened her eyes and stared, uncomprehending, at the unfamiliar wall.

_Where… Where am I?_

She froze, memories of the day before seeping back into her mind. Suddenly, she became painfully aware of the arm wrapped around her waist and the warmth of a body pressed against hers.

Her eyes fell on the bare arm thrown over her. Slowly, she turned her gaze to its owner and flinched violently.

Her captor was awake, staring at her intently.

She was shaking now, gaze flitting away. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the smile that now graced her kidnapper’s lips.

“Good morning, Lisa.”

She flinched again. The voice was low, lower than before, and gravelly from sleep. Isabella swallowed, her throat suddenly parched, a slimy feeling clawing its way up. She took a deep breath, trying to control herself before she started to hyperventilate. She took another breath, focusing desperately on the obnoxious alarm, still beeping on the nightstand.

“I said.” The words immediately brought her attention back from the noise and any progress made on calming down was lost. “Good morning, Lisa.”

The words were quiet but intense. Something about the tone made her want to hide under the covers.

“Good morning.” She whispered, voice shaking.

There was that satisfied curl of those lips again. Isabella clutched the sheets tightly.

“Unfortunately, I’ll be at work today.” Her breath caught. Did that mean…? “But you’ve been acting really strange lately, and I think it would be best for you to stay in this room. I’m going to lock the door, just to be safe.”

“W-Wait!” She exclaimed, this time forcing herself to look up. “I-I’m ok. I-I mean… It’s fine! I’m fine. You don’t need to–”

She sucked in a breath, cutting herself off as the satisfied smile fell, giving way to a frighteningly displeased expression. “I-I mean… nevermind.” Isabella backtracked shakily. “I- That- You’re right. I should just- I’ll stay in here.”

The smile was back. “There you go. I knew you’d see it my way.”

The arm around her waist retracted and slammed down against the alarm clock. Isabella bit her lip, agitated by the sudden quiet.

“Get better, Lisa. I’m off to work.”

She nodded quickly. Her abductor stood, catching her jaw in a strong grip and forcing her head up and forward. Her eyes went wide with realization as she tried to back away only to be easily overpowered. A pair of lips pressed firmly against hers for a moment then withdrew.

She collapsed back against the bed, curling into herself as her captor gave a final, “See you later.” and walked out the door.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Reborn studied Hana from the corner of his eye. She was being unusually quiet, fidgeting occasionally, and constantly looking out the window.

He frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”

Hana twitched in surprise, turning to face him. “The fuck? I breathed?”

He rolled his eyes but kept them on the road. “Oh, I see, sure, let’s pretend you’re not moping over your sweet, darling Kyo-yo, and that your only issue is that you breathe funny.”

“Wow!” Hana exclaimed sarcastically. “Hilarious. Absolutely, side-splittingly hysterical.”

Reborn’s lips twitched up into a smirk. 

“Ok.” He said. “But seriously, what’s up with you?”

Hana sighed. “Nothing’s wrong, I’m just a little nervous for Kyoko. She’s been doubting herself a lot lately and it’s like she got thrown to the sharks right off the bat.”

“She’ll be fine.” He told her bluntly. “Tsuna’s with her.”

“Yeah.” She said quietly.

Reborn flicked the left blinker on, shifting into the turn lane to pull into the dealership parking lot. He parked and switched the car off before turning to look at Hana.

“What is it?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at her perplexed expression.

She hesitated for a moment. “It’s just… You seem to trust Tsuna quite a bit.”

He blinked, then smirked at her. “One must place their trust in the person who broke them out of prison, I’m afraid.” He paused before adding, “It’s written in the IOC’s contract for my soul.”

Hana didn’t laugh. “I’m serious, Reborn. You two… You seem to trust each other a lot.”

He shook his head, amusement fading. “No. You’ve got it wrong.” At her questioning look, he continued. “Both Tsuna and I survive off of mutual distrust.”

“That’s not–”

“It is.” He interrupted. “Let me explain. I don’t trust Tsuna in the slightest, and the same goes for the rest of you. I respect you, him especially, and have full confidence you'll all do your jobs, but that isn’t trust. And I can tell you with certainty that Tsuna feels the same. He may seem easy-going, but–”

_“Look, I don’t trust you. In fact, I’m scared of you, which makes me extra cautious. If you accept this, you’ll have to get the tracking chip, it’s non-negotiable until you prove yourself. And I’d suggest not holding your breath because–”_

“– it’s harder than you think to earn his trust.”

And the same goes for me.

Her brow furrowed, confusion reflecting in her eyes.

Reborn huffed, opening the car door. “Stop thinking so hard, you look like you’re taking a shit.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Mr. and Mrs. Torres,–”

____________

“–ladies,–”

____________

–Kyoko greeted. “Thank you for coming in today, please have a seat.”

The couple sat down, albeit reluctantly.

“May I ask why we’re here again?” Mrs. Torres demanded. “We already answered the police’s questions.”

Her husband glanced at her, eyebrows furrowed.

She cleared her throat. “What I mean is, well, this whole ordeal has been very difficult. We’re still processing everything and so many of you people prying into our lives isn’t helping.” She put a hand on her husband’s and they made brief eye contact.

The man nodded. “She’s right. Olivia’s… She’s–” He cut himself off, squeezing his eyes shut before finally saying, “We’re trying to keep busy.”

“Yes.” His wife cut in again before Tsuna had a chance to speak. “Busy. Like with the HOA I just recently started. After everything that’s happened, I’ve come to realize that we need to make the neighborhoods safer around here. I’m bringing it up at our next meeting. The next meeting that _I’m_ planning for tomorrow. So what is this about, officer?”

____________

One of the girls– Victoria Young, spoke up. “This is about Olivia, right?”

Tsuna raised an eyebrow. “Yes, we just need to ask you some questions.”

“Ok.” One of the others– Grace Mitchell said slowly. “It’s not that we mind questions, we’re happy to help in any way we can. The thing is…”

“We weren’t that close to her.” Penelope Riverra interjected.

Tsuna paused at that. “You weren't close?” He repeated. “The police officers that asked around school said that you four were her best friends.”

“We are,” confirmed Madison Baker. “But… to be honest we weren’t exactly friends. More like friendly acquaintances. We went to parties with her and stuff, and sometimes we hung out, but the truth is she was kind of a loner. She liked to surround herself with people, but wouldn't let anyone get too close.”

____________

Tsuna observed the pair for a moment, noticing how Mr. Torres seemed to be somewhat lost in thought. He turned to his wife, “Now ma’am, your daughter–”

“She’s not– Um, I mean, she isn’t my daughter. I’m her stepmother.”

Tsuna pursed his lips, jaw clenching in irritation. “I am well aware. I also know the two of you have been married since she was 10, so I’m sure your input is still very much relevant.”

She fell silent. Tsuna took a breath. _Mio Dio, I forget how fucking infuriating some of these people are._

“It seems like, from what the police gathered, Olivia was at a party the night of her abduction. To your knowledge, is this consistent with her normal behavior?”

Mrs. Torres scoffed lightly. “Yes, it was. Even in high school she was always going out to parties and getting drunk or high. Both, usually. Michael was too lenient with her, always giving her a large allowance, letting her get together with her disaster of a mother, even paying for her college.”

“Riley.” Mr. Torres said, finally speaking up. “That’s enough.”

____________

_Interesting, Olivia’s practically the opposite of Sophia_. “That’s fine. Please just answer these questions to the best of your ability.”

The girls nodded.

____________

“Her… mother.” Mr. Torres continued. “She’s always been a bit of a party animal, and to be frank, something of an addict. I really didn’t want her around Olivia, but who was I to deny a little girl wanting to see her mother? I’m not that cruel.”

____________

“Did Olivia have any enemies? Anyone who you can think of who might want to hurt her?”

“Well,” Mitchell said. “I wouldn’t say there was anyone quite like that.”

“Yeah.” agreed Young. “Plenty of people disliked Olivia, some for her lifestyle and some because she could be kinda insensitive, but for the most part people ignored her. Like, she’d get attention during parties when everyone was drunk and having fun, but that was it.”

“It was kind of the same for exes,” Baker said. “She had a lot of one night stands, but the next day whoever it was would go back to pretending she didn’t exist. It was really sad, actually. I think that’s why she liked parties so much, ‘cause it was like the only time she could feel seen. I don’t think she ever actually dated, though.”

“That’s not true,” said Riverra quickly. “I mean, the dating part. I swear I’ve seen her on Tinder a few times.”

“Oh, yeah.” Mitchell agreed. “I noticed that too, but it didn’t really seem like she was seriously searching for someone.”

____________

“Plenty of people didn’t like her.” Mrs. Torres said. “Olivia wasn’t very good at being friendly and got on a lot of people’s nerves. That tends to happen when you walk around drunk off your ass all the time.”

“As for boyfriends,” Mr. Torres answered. “I really don’t know. She never brought anyone around the house.”

His wife snorted. “Any boyfriend that girl had left the next morning.”

“ _Riley._ ”

____________

“Do you know where she was the night of her abduction?”

“Yeah, we went to the party with her,” said Young. “It was just a typical college party. She disappeared pretty quick, though. We thought she must’ve found someone to hook up with like normal, so we weren’t too worried.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

By the time Isabella had gotten her breathing under control and crawled out from under the covers, it felt like hours had passed.

She couldn’t breathe through her nose and her eyes were swollen and throbbing. She wanted nothing more than to just go to sleep and pretend all this was just a bad dream. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t a nightmare and she wasn’t going to wake up from it, which meant that she needed to help herself. And this might be her only chance.

Isabella pushed herself into a sitting position, glancing around the room. It was fairly small in size, with scarce furniture. The only door was off to the right, closed. The bed was pushed against the back wall off to the left to make room for a nightstand. Opposite the door was a small window, light from outside peeking through the thick curtains.

She got up, shakily making her way to the door. Even if her captor had explicitly told her she’d be locked in, she had to try.

Isabella reached out to twist the doorknob, but it didn’t budge. She sighed, pulling her hand back and making her way over to the window.

She pushed the curtains to the side, trying to figure out where she was.

It was a normal-looking neighborhood, maybe middle class. Nice houses lined up the block, and people milling around, going about their days. Isabella blinked back tears, she wasn’t exactly sure why she was surprised, but she couldn’t help but feel it would’ve been easier if she’d been brought to some horrible place in the middle of nowhere. 

The thought that she was brought here, in the middle of– well, _somewhere_ , after being kidnapped and no one had even noticed left her with the haunting feeling that she was invisible.

She shook her head, trying to banish those thoughts, and looked out the window again. The bedroom was on the second story, but– She glanced back at the bed. The sheets could get her low enough for her to be able to jump.

Isabella bit her lip nervously before reaching to open the window. It was shut tight. She frowned, turned to unlatch the locks and tried again. Nothing. She studied the frame quickly, eyes falling on a little black lock attached to the top.

She blinked and stood on her tiptoes to reach for it. The moment her hand touched it the telltale sound of electricity filled the air as her hand burned and pain zapped down her arm. She screamed, tripping backward onto the floor.

Her head smacked against the edge of the bed, and everything went black.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Reborn opened the door of the dealership for Hana then stepped inside after her. It was fairly crowded, several staff members scattered around helping customers at various tables.

After taking a moment to survey the scene, they made their way to the receptionist.

“Excuse me, miss.” He said, pulling out his badge. “We’re with the IOC. Is there any way we could talk to your boss? It’s about the recent car thefts.”

The woman looked between them, seemingly a bit stunned, before nodding rapidly. “Yes, of course. I’ll call him right away.”

Reborn gave her a curt nod, and took a step away from the counter, going to stand by Hana off to the side.

“So,” He started. “You’re nervous for Kyoko, but what about yourself?”

She blinked at him. “Why would I be nervous? Are you? Is the oh-so-great Reborn worried he can’t do his job?”

“Sure. Sounds like deflection to me.”

“I think you mean–”

“Excuse me, agents?”

They turned to look at the man who had spoken. He was fairly young, with short light brown hair and green eyes, dressed professionally in a dark suit. He smiled uncertainly.

“Um, hello. I’m Jim Edwards, the general manager of Choice Vehicles, how can I help you?”

Hana stepped forward to shake his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Edwards. I’m SSA Kurokawa, and this is SSA Sinclair. We’re here to speak to you about the recent vehicle thefts.”

Edwards blinked, understanding and relief coloring his face. “Oh, I see. Of course, follow me.”

He brought them behind the reception desk, down the hallway, and into his office. Edwards held the door open, closing it behind them.

“Please, feel free to sit down. I’ll answer any questions that I can.”

“Thank you, Mr. Edwards,” Hana said as they took a seat. “Are you aware that the most recent stolen vehicle was found last night?”

Edwards looked a bit pained when he responded. “Yes, I am.”

“And you're aware of the state it was found in?” Reborn asked.

Edwards nodded, grimace growing. “Yes, that’s correct. They’ve all been found destroyed in some way, so while it’s disconcerting it wasn’t really a surprise.”

The hitman frowned, exchanging a look with Hana. “How long has this been going on?”

“Just over a month, I believe. I can look up the exact date if you want.”

Hana nodded. “Please do.”

Edwards glanced down at his computer, typing a few things then scrolling. “It was first reported on September 21st.”

Reborn pursed his lips. _That’s only a few days before Sophia Carter went missing._

“And the others?” Hana asked.

“October 5th and 15th.”

“The first date,” Reborn said. “Did anything particularly significant happen around that time?”

Edwards hesitated. “Not within the company, no.”

Hana raised an eyebrow. “So, something did happen?”

“Ah, well, I got engaged the day before.”

Reborn blinked. _Well, that’s random, but not necessarily inconsequential._

“Mr. Edwards.” He started, pulling the case file up on his phone. “Do you know any of these women?”

Edwards took his phone, flipping through the photos, brow furrowed. “No, I’m sorry. Should I?”

Reborn took his phone back while Hana shook her head. “No. We have reason to believe these thefts may be connected to a series of murders. Those were the victims.”

The color drained from Edwards' face. “Murder?” He asked, horror evident in his voice.

“Yes,” Reborn confirmed, pulling a business card from inside his jacket (one of Tsuna’s that he swiped from his office). “So, if you think of anything that could help, or another car goes missing, please call this number right away.”

Edwards nodded. “ I will.”

They stood. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Edwards,” Hana said.

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Kyoko?” Tsuna called, stepping out of the conference room. “Who are we waiting for?”

It had been a while since the last interview, and although he was slightly grateful to take a break and be able to sort through his notes, he was also aware that the next interview should’ve started by now.

Kyoko glanced back at him from where she was sitting, staring at the door to the office. She looked upset.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, leaning against the unoccupied desk beside her.

“It’s just that Olivia Torres’ mother should’ve been here almost an hour ago.” She took a deep breath. “I asked her to come in today and confirmed the time and everything. I just double-checked my notes to make sure I didn’t misread it and now I’m thinking that maybe I wrote it down wrong. I–”

“Woah, woah, woah.” Tsuna said, holding up a hand to stop her. “Listen. I sincerely doubt you got it wrong. And if she’s an hour late I don’t think she’s coming. She probably wasn’t planning on it in the first place, which is a whole other problem that we’re not going to deal with right now. I’ll go ask Hayato to get me her address for later, and you go prepare for the next interview.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Isabella opened her eyes slowly, pain still reverberating through her body. She furrowed her brow and moved to pick herself off the floor, only to flinch at the sound of a door slamming.

She stilled, listening carefully. Heavy footsteps ran up the stairs towards the bedroom. She scooted back a couple feet before the door flew open.

Isabella froze, seeing the anger in her captor’s eyes.

“Hey, Lisa.” He said, tone flat.

He took a few slow steps closer to her, slamming the door shut behind him. Isabella pushed herself further away from him until she was pressed against the wall.

He darted forward, kneeling and, catching the front of her shirt in a tight grip. She whimpered softly as he glared down at her, mouth twisted in a sneer.

“I wasn’t enough for you. Is that it?” He asked icily.

She shook her head frantically. “N-No, t-that’s not–”

“Are you calling me a liar?” He bellowed. “I gave you everything and you _cheated_ on me! And now, you’re trying to _leave_ me.”

“No!” Isabella cried out. “I didn’t do any of those things! I don’t even _know_ you–”

The slap was so hard her head snapped to the side, hitting the wall. She gasped, the sound muted by ringing in her ears.

Her captor released his grip on her shirt to grab hold of her shoulders and lift her off the ground slightly just to slam her back against the wall. “ _Don’t._ ” _slam_ “ _Fucking._ ” _slam_ “ _Lie!_ ” _slam_ “You fucking _bitch_.” He roared, whipping her around and throwing her to the floor.

“Stop.” She sobbed. “P- Please _stop_ ”

He shoved her down, and straddled her, grabbing her hair in a tight grip and slamming it down against the floor.

Isabella cried out in pain, tears streaming down her face as his fist connected with her face again and again.

“Little slut thinks she can fuck anyone she wants, huh?” He spat, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a swiss army knife. “Well, you’re _wrong_. You belong to _me_.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Mr. and Mrs. Scott, Ms. Harris,” Kyoko said. “Thank you so much for coming in. Please have a seat.”

They sat. Tsuna stared for a moment before glancing at Kyoko, who shrugged.

“Hello.” He greeted them again. “We weren’t expecting you all at once.” He commented, trying to keep his voice light so they’d know it wasn’t really a problem.

“Yes. I’m sorry.” Mrs. Scott said immediately, voice soft. “I’m the one who asked Lily to come along. Her and Isabella were childhood friends, you know. I just– I wanted us all to be here for each other.” She averted her gaze, but Tsuna had already noticed the tears pooling in her eyes.

Kyoko placed a soothing hand on the woman’s shoulder. “We understand.” The thief said gently. “It really isn’t a problem.”

“We’ll tell you anything that’ll help you find the bastard that did this,” said Mr. Scott firmly. “Anything that’ll help you get our Isabella back to us.”

Tsuna nodded again. “I’m glad to hear that. First, was there anyone you know of that would want to hurt Isabella? An ex-boyfriend or someone who she didn’t along with? Even someone you didn't really know, but she might’ve mentioned at some point?”

Mr. Scott shook his head. “There was no one I can think of that she didn’t get along with. She wasn’t exactly the type to be friends with everyone, but she was always polite. Also, she’s never dated.”

“Actually,” Lily said, glancing nervously at Isabella’s parents. “She had two boyfriends in high school, but they both parted on good terms. She wasn’t really upset by either breakup, but she decided that she didn’t really need romance and she’d wait for it to come to her instead. It wasn’t until recently that I convinced her to download Tinder.”

Tsuna raised his eyebrows. _Tinder again? I guess we’ve found our hunting ground._

“I see.” He said. “She was at a party the night of her abduction. Were you with her?” He asked Lily.

She nodded. “Yes.” Guilt welled up in her eyes, and tears spilled over. “She didn’t even want to go. Parties really aren’t her thing, but I wanted a friend to go with. I lost her at some point, then someone told me she left and–” She broke off in a sob. “I found her phone on the sidewalk, and she wasn’t in her dorm. I should’ve been more careful.”

Isabella’s parents hugged her gently, the three of them clearly accustomed to each other. Tsuna lowered his eyes, giving them a moment.

“Agent.” He looked up, meeting eyes with Mr. Scott. “Are you going to find my daughter?”

Tsuna’s grip tightened around his pen. “I’m going to try my damned hardest.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Isabella released a strangled shriek as her adductor– no, _torturer_ finished cutting into her stomach and threw the knife to the side.

She couldn’t see what he’d done, but she knew he’d written something. Carved something into her skin.

She sobbed, vision blurry as blood gushed from her wounds. _It’s over_ , she thought, relieved as he sat back on his knees, _thank God it’s over_.

“You think I’m done with you?” A familiarly cruel voice spoke. Her eyes darted back up to the man’s face, trying to focus on him. “Oh, no, Lisa. I’m nowhere near done with you.”

Her gaze dropped to his bloodied hand starting to unzip his pants. Fear and disgust shot through her, and she did the only thing she could.

She screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tada!!! So, what did you think? Any likes/dislikes? Let me know!


	13. A Million Versions of You Pt. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyyy, guys! Ok so, this author's note is going to be slightly longer than usual, sorry about that.
> 
> First, sorry it took me so long to write this chapter. I had it all planned out and had written almost all of it and then I got super busy. I am going to try and make an effort to actually stick to my schedule (yes, I have said that before, but we're trying again), so I'm going to try my best to finish a chapter a week. In the event that I miss a week, I'll be doing my best to catch up.
> 
> Secondly, I don't normally actually sit down and write a complete outline for my stories because I tend to come up with things as I go, however, because of the strange structure of this fic I did do that (and it’s actually worked for me I think imma start doing more often). Basically, this story was intended to not follow a big overarching plot as you'd normally have and instead have several (by several I mean more than several, and probably too many tbh) arcs and to focus on character development. So essentially I'm writing this as a show which makes everything super weird structure-wise. The point is I wrote the outline and holy shit this fic is gonna be a lot longer than I originally anticipated, so strap in, I guess haha.
> 
> Also, because of the outline, I hope my characterization, as well as some other things, are much more clear moving forward from this specific case (I decided to finish the case how it was planned and to change things after).
> 
> Cool, thank you! Enjoy!
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.

`Los Angeles, USA`  
`October 20, 2012`  
`8:37 AM`

Isabella was awakened by a slap to the face. Her head lolled to the side, a broken groan falling from her lips.

Everything hurt. The open wounds on her body throbbed, the cool air from the room’s fan making them burn. And it was _bright_. The light was clearly turned on, and even with her eyes squeezed shut the radiance of the room had her head pounding.

“Wake up.” A gruff voice said from somewhere above her.

She whimpered, tears slipping from her eyes when she recognized the voice. Yesterday had been hell, was today going to be the same? Her whole body went cold at the thought. 

“Lisa.”

 _Please, no,_ she thought, no, _prayed_. _Please, no more_. Her breathing became ragged as her mind fought to come to terms with her situation.

“ _Lisa_.” The voice growled, sounding now. “Wake up.”

Isabella forced her eyes open, choking on a sob as her captor came into focus. He sneered down at her.

“I’m going to work. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone, or when I come back you’ll regret it. Am I making myself clear?”

She was shaking again, tears blurring her vision. He kneeled down getting close to her face.

“I said, am I making myself _clear_?” He snapped, spittle splattering against her cheek.

“Yes.” She whispered weakly, fear gnawing at her insides.

He stood, glaring down at her one last time before leaving the room. Her eyes fell shut when she heard the door slam, her silent tears turning into a full blown panic attack. 

How could all this have happened? Why her? What had she ever done to deserve anything like this? All she wanted was to grow up, get a nice job, and fall in love. So why… Isabella sobbed harder. _Why?_ Where did she go wrong? She shouldn’t have taken everything she had for granted. She shouldn’t have cared so much about what other people thought of her. She should’ve spent more time getting to know and love herself. She should’ve asked Lily to have a movie night instead of going to that fucking party.

 _Lily_ , and her parents. She wanted so badly to be snuggling on the couch, watching a movie with her little family right now.

Another broken wail tore out of her throat as she pressed her forehead to the floor. What was going to happen now? Was he going to kill her?

Isabella’s eyes snapped open, her whole body standing on edge.

“No.” She choked out. “No, no, no, _no_. I don– I don’t wanna. No, _please_. No! I don’t wanna– I don’t wanna die, please. God, please.”

She curled in on herself.

“ _Papa_. Papa, please help me.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“So, she just didn’t show up?” Reborn asked, irritation seeping into his voice.

Tsuna sighed. “Yeah. No one we interviewed for Olivia was…” He paused searching for the right word before giving up with a shake of his head. “I don’t know.”

Reborn frowned at him. “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific.”

The brunet huffed, rolling his eyes. “What, so you aren’t a mind reader?”

The hitman’s eyes darkened a bit at the challenge. Tsuna bit back a laugh. Reborn could be so competitive it was almost comical.

“Oh, I see how it is.” Reborn scoffed. “Fine. Olivia is the second victim, and we’re about to visit her mother. Given the fact that her mother didn’t bother to show up to the interview, I’ll assume that they probably didn’t have a very good relationship.” He paused, studying Tsuna’s face as the brunet parked in front of the Hall house. “Your eyebrows furrowed earlier, and you did the weird little pursed lips frown you make when you're upset about something. You said something about the interviews, so I assume her father– and stepmom, was it? They probably didn’t care for her much either.”

Tsuna’s lips twitched up into a small smile, a bit of pride gathering in his chest.

Reborn smirked. “How’d I do?”

He laughed, eyes crinkling in amusement. “We’ll work on it.” He said teasingly.

“I thought that’s what we’ve been doing, you know, for the past four months.”

“Listen,” Tsuna said gravely. “If you end your training now, if you choose the quick and easy path as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil.”

Reborn made a face at him. “Star Wars, really?”

“Don’t look at me like that. Yoda is wise as fuck. Now get out of the car, we have an interview to conduct.”

____________

Tsuna knocked on Scarlet Hall’s massive front door.

He stepped back, and waited…

And waited.

Reborn elbowed him, motioning towards the door expectantly. He stepped back up to it and knocked again.

“Ms. Scarlet Hall, we’re with the IOC and we’d like to ask you some questions, please open the door.”

The faint echoes of quickly approaching footsteps reached them from inside the house. He stepped back just as the door swung open.

Scarlet Hall was a tall, spindly woman with brown hair that came down to her mid back. Despite the fact that she was just over 50, the only part of her appearance that reflected the number were the dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. 

“Do you know what time it is?” She snapped.

Tsuna’s eyebrows shot up as he exchanged a look with Reborn. 

“Are you Ms. Hall?” He asked.

She rolled her eyes. “I am.”

“Well, then, Ms. Hall,” Reborn said, pulling out his badge. “I’m SSA Sinclair and this is SSA Sawada from the IOC. Mind if we come in?”

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Why?”

Tsuna pursed his lips. “Because we’re investigating your daughter’s murder, Ms. Hall, and yesterday you neglected to come in for your interview.”

“I was busy.” She said, crossing her arms.

“Ms. Hall. May we come in.” Reborn reiterated, more forcefully this time.

She sighed, turning away from the door and stalking further into her home. “Fine.”

The brunet exchanged an irritated look with Reborn, holding back a sigh.

They stepped into the house, shutting the door behind them. Tsuna grimaced, the place was a fucking mess. The heavy stink of weed hung over the interior as well as a thin haze of smoke. Red solo cups littered the floor and furniture, some of which was decidedly unusable due to the hurricane that seemed to have blown through the house.

Reborn took a step forward and led Tsuna into the living room where Hall was waiting. She gestured for them to have a seat, crossing her legs as they did so.

“So?” She asked.

Tsuna cleared his throat. “We’d like to ask you some questions about Olivia, but before we do that we need to know what you were doing yesterday.”

“Why?” She asked.

“Because, Ms. Hall, you neglected to come into your interview at the station yesterday.” Reborn explained calmly. “You had already confirmed you’d be there.”

She huffed. “I had a house party yesterday.”

“Oh, _really_ ” Reborn drawled. Tsuna kicked him in the shin, giving him a very clear _don’t be an antagonistic, sarcastic ass and let’s get this over with_ look.

“Ma’am,” Tsuna started. “I think we can clearly see you had a party yesterday. What we’re getting at is that we’re conducting a murder investigation. Can you see why this doesn’t exactly look good for you?”

“What? You think I had something to do with this?”

“No.” Reborn said. “But we need to cover all our bases, and you’re now a person of interest.”

“Look.” She snapped. “I’ve done nothing wrong! Either ask your questions about Olivia or leave. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Tsuna paused, grinding his teeth together lightly. _She’s right, it isn’t illegal to blow off an investigative interview. We can only question her if she complies voluntarily._

“You’re right.” He said finally. “I apologize, ma’am.”

She nodded, still frowning.

“Was there anyone you know of who disliked Olivia? Any enemies you can think of? Maybe an ex?”

Ms. Hall shrugged. “Sure, there were plenty of people who disliked her. Not that I could name any of them. Most were just faceless losers who didn’t agree with this sort of lifestyle.”

“Lifestyle?” Reborn asked. “Would you please be more specific?”

“Partying, of course.” She grinned. “Learned it from her mom. Me, of course, not that dumb bitch Michael married.”

Tsuna raised his eyebrows, but powered forward. “And exes?”

“Oh, we don’t do that.” She dismissed quickly. “I mean, sure, I may have made a mistake when I let Michael wine and dine me, but I sure as fuck ain’t doing that again. I taught her the same, you fuck em’ and dump em’. Nothing more. Although…”

She trailed off thoughtfully. “You know, she did say she was done with that a few weeks before everything. She downloaded some app and kept going on about how she was gonna try to find someone.” Ms. Hall snorted incredulously. “Stupid girl almost made the same mistake I did.”

Tsuna and Reborn exchanged a look.

“Do you know what this app was called?” Reborn asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Thinker? Tinker? Uh–”

“Tinder?” Tsuna interrupted.

“Yeah, that’s the one.” She went silent for a moment. “Would the two of you like anything to drink?”

“Oh, no, that’s alr–”

“Nonsense! I think I have some vodka left, we can drink to Olivia’s avoidance of a terrible fate.” She stood. “I’ll be right back.”

They stood.

“Fucking hell.” Tsuna muttered, adjusting his suit. “What shitty thing to drink to. She didn’t want her daughter in a relationship so she’s happy she’s dead? And she does know we can’t drink on the clock, right? ”

Silence.

Tsuna turned. “Reborn?”

Reborn glanced at him, grimaced, and said, “You’re not gonna believe this.”

Tsuna furrowed his brow. “What?”

He gently lifted a bag of little gray tablets.

 _Fentanyl_ , his brain supplied, _Heroin_.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

____________

“Is she a suspect?” Phillips hesitantly asked as Reborn handed off Ms. Hall to one of the police officers by the entrance.

“You assholes, I’ll fucking see you in court. You motherfu–”

A door slammed in the background.

“No.” Tsuna said. “She has nothing to do with our case, but she was in possession of quite a bit of heroin, so… I assumed you’d want her here.”

Phillips clicked his tongue. “Lovely.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Hana lifted the large print of the city map and taped it to the board right below the county map.

“What are you doing?”

She turned, Kyoko was standing in the doorway of the conference room observing the maps curiously.

“I’m making a geographic profile. I’ll mark the kidnapping and dump sites on either map and use the points to try and figure out where the UnSub lives.”

Kyoko’s eyes widened. “You can do that?”

“It’s not as specific as you’re probably thinking. It’s just a smaller circle of possibilities Hayato can use to narrow our suspects down once we have a list.”

“Still that’s pretty cool.” Kyoko said.

Hana made a small noise of agreement. “What’ve you been up to?”

“I’m waiting for a call. I’m trying to set up the press conference for later today, so I have to contact a bunch of news agencies.”

Hana snorted. “Sounds fun.”

Kyoko giggled. “ _So_ fun.”

Hana fell silent for a moment. “Hey, how are you doing? I know you haven’t been super… self-confident recently, I–”

“I’m ok.” Kyoko said, smiling sweetly. “Thank you for worrying, but I’m doing better. Tsuna’s talked to me about it. So far he’s been letting me shadow him. He says it’ll be my job after this, but this way I have some sort of reference. It’s nice, and I really think it’s helping me not to be overwhelmed.”

Hana nodded, frowning.

Kyoko furrowed her brow. “What is it?”

“It’s… It’s nothing.” She said finally. “That’s good, I’m glad he’s helping you out this time around.”

Kyoko studied her quietly. “Something’s bothering you though. Please tell me?”

“I–” Hana paused, collecting herself. “I don’t know. It’s just that all of you seem to trust Tsuna so much. I was worried about you earlier, and Reborn told me it’d be fine because Tsuna was with you. Now, you’ve said almost the exact same thing. I mean, I haven’t talked to Hayato about it, but the two of them are basically best friends at this point. And I– well, it may be because I knew him _before_ , but I just can’t find it in me to trust him.”

Kyoko opened her mouth to respond, but Hana continued before she could say anything.

“Don’t get me wrong, I like him. Tsuna and I have always gotten along, but I just…”

Kyoko reached for her arm, squeezing gently. “Hana… Is this something that’s been upsetting you? That you can’t trust him yet?”

“I don’t know.” She whispered. “I’m not sure what this is. It’s just unsettling, I guess.”

Kyoko smiled. “That’s alright. It’s ok to feel this way. You and Tsuna have a really unique relationship compared to the rest of us. You may not have been friends, but the two of you were there for each other when no one else was. You guys lingered in a state of friendly distrust for a long time, and then you thought he was dead. I think it’s perfectly normal to not know how to feel now. Just let it happen. There’s no rush.”

Hana stared at her. “Damn, you got wise.”

Kyoko laughed. “I know. I think our Chief is rubbing off on me.”

Hana snickered. “If you start mother henning everyone I’ll get you away. Don’t worry.”

Kyoko beamed up at her. Hana smiled.

The phone rang.

“Well, that’s my cue.” Kyoko said, reaching for the device. “Have fun with your maps.”

Hana grinned, reaching for a sharpie. “Sure thing.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Hello, this is Kyoko Sasagawa, what can I do for you?”

“Ms. Sasagawa! It’s nice to finally hear your voice.” The caller declared from the other line. “I’m Mrs. Johnson from ABC news.”

“Oh, yes. Hello, Mrs. Johnson.” Kyoko said. “Thank you for calling.”

“Of course, how can I help?”

“As I said in my email our team would like to make a statement about the recent kidnappings and murders regarding the media attention it’s getting.” She explained. “I’m calling to confirm someone from NBC Southern California will be there.”

“Yes, of course.” Mrs. Johnson said. “Rest assured it won’t be a problem. We’ll be there.”

“Thank you. I understand there was probably something already lined up–”

“Not at all! We were already going to be talking about this, your press conference will be much more interesting.” She insisted.

“Alright.” Kyoko said. “Thank you again. See you tonight.”

“No, thank _you_ , dear. Goodbye!”

The call disconnected. Kyoko glanced down at the phone, raising an eyebrow.

“Someone has energy.” She muttered.

“Kyoko.”

She turned. Tsuna motioned towards the conference room.

“We’re about to deliver the profile.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“We believe the person we’re looking for is a male caucasian.” Tsuna said. “Because all the girls were around the same age and taken in or around college campuses, we believe that he’s around that age, but due to the sophistication of the crimes it’s likely he’s in his mid to late twenties.”

“He most likely does not own a vehicle.” Hana said. “Since stealing cars, especially from the same dealership is risky, it’s unlikely he’s simply not using his own. The consistent theft from Choice Vehicles also tells us that his stressor is somehow connected to that dealership, either a person or a memory of some sort.”

“How do we know it isn’t just conviennent?” Phillips asked.

“Due to the sophistication of the other areas of the crime, such as the lack of DNA despite the rape of the victims, it’s unlikely that this UnSub would continually steal from a single dealership, even if it was convenient.” Hana told him. “If the dealership wasn’t in some way important, he would’ve tried to cover his tracks better.”

Phillips nodded, jotting something down.

“Due to the similarly late times of theft, abduction, and dumping of the bodies, we believe that it’s likely he has a day job.” Reborn continued. “He probably has some sort of technical role, and we believe he either works in or with the company Tinder.”

“This UnSub is what we call a Sexual Sadist. He gets off on torturing his victims, he likes causing them pain.” Tsuna said. “He’s choosing surrogates, so girls that remind him of the specific person that he actually wants to kill. If we can figure out who this person is, it’ll lead us straight to him.”

Phillips nodded, turning to the other officers in the room. “Got that?”

There were various sounds of agreement.

“Then let’s get to work.” The police chief ordered, leading the way out of the room.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Hayato clicked his tongue as he read through the criteria once again.

“Ok.” He whispered to himself. “Works for Tinder. Does something techy.”

He glanced up to the ceiling. _What sort of job would allow him to sort through people’s profiles?_

“A software engineer? Or tech support?” He mused, turning his gaze back to the monitor.

He quickly typed in a few things, pulling up a list of both professions living in Los Angeles county working for Tinder.

`72 results.`

Hayato sighed. “Well that’s not very helpful.”

_Let’s see, between 25 and 30, male, caucasian, complete psychopath… too bad that’s not something you can put through a search engine._

`49 results.`

“Hmm.”

_Those who don’t own a vehicle?_

`21 results.`

_Still not small enough._

“What else?” He muttered. “The geographic profile isn’t too accurate cause there aren't three bodies, so _that’s_ not helpful…”

He drummed his fingers against the table, staring at the wall thoughtfully.

“Back to Choice Vehicles, I guess.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“So.” Reborn said.

Hana raised an eyebrow, glancing at him. “So?”

“Did you get your problem sorted?” He asked.

She frowned. “What problem? There wasn’t a problem.”

Reborn sent her a disbelieving look as he reached a stop sign. “The thing about Tsuna?”

“Oh, yeah– Wait. How did you know it was bothering me?”

“I mean, you did ask me about it.” Reborn said.

“I–”

“That and I’m a psychic.” The hitman deadpanned.

Hana blinked, staring at him incredulously. “What the fuck are you on about?”

Reborn frowned at her. “It’s no fun if you say everything out loud, at least have the decency to think it so I can prove myself.”

She broke into baffled laughter. “What the hell?”

He turned back to the road, grumbling slightly. “See, there you go again.”

Hana snickered.

Reborn smirked lightly. “We’re here.”

They stepped out of the car, squinting against the setting sun to observe the junkyard. Rows upon rows of broken cars stretched into the distance. They took a moment to take it in.

“When they say the cars were messed up,” Hana started. “How bad do you think we’re talking? Like, on a scale from that gray Toyota Corolla over there to the blue Honda Civic on top of that pile?”

Reborn snorted, moving towards the warehouse looming behind the junkyard. “I have no idea what a Toyota Corolla looks like and half the cars here are gray. Don’t know what to tell you.”

“Oh? Looky here.” Hana preened. “I’ve found your weakness.”

“Yes, it’s true. My one true fault, my Achilles heel, is my lack of vehicular knowledge.” Reborn declared dramatically.

They dissolved into quiet laughter as they picked their way through the near-silent junkyard. As they neared the warehouse the distinct clanging of metal started to reach them.

Reborn slowed, allowing Hana to step forward into the warehouse’s entrance. It was a large, open space, occupied by various car pieces, a desk, and a man, currently kneeling before a semi-deconstructed car.

The man grunted as he lifted the left back tire away from the vehicle and set it beside him. Hana cleared her throat.

The man turned at the noise, eyeing them in slight surprise. “Can I help you?”

“Are you Mr. Anderson?” Hana asked.

The man stepped towards them, away from the car, wiping his hands on his jeans as he drew them up to his hips. “I am.” He nodded, then repeated. “Can I help you?”

Reborn leaned slightly against the warehouse opening. “We’re with the IOC, and were hoping you could show us the damaged cars the police have found recently.”

“Ah.” Anderson said. “I was wondering when you’d come by. Thomas mentioned something about you when he dropped off the last one.”

“Thomas?” Hana asked. “Chief Phillips?”

“The one and only.”

Reborn raised an eyebrow. “The two of you are close?”

“Yeah.” Anderson sighed. “We’re old drinking buddies. I introduced him to his wife.”

Reborn hummed, seeing Hana glance at him out of the corner of his eye.

She hummed in acknowledgement. “So he let you know we were coming?”

Anderson nodded, motioning for them to follow him as he stepped outside of the warehouse and started making his way to the far left side of the yard. “Yes ma’am. Wanted to be sure that I wouldn’t get rid of them, I think.”

“Are you the only person working right now?” Reborn asked.

Anderson nodded, looking back at them. “Yeah, I own this place. I normally give the guys Saturdays off. They're a hardworking group and most of em’ have young kids at home. I know how important it is to spend time with the little ones when they’re that age.”

The last line was spoken darkly, somber, as if reminiscing on something. Reborn pursed his lips. _Probably best not to ask_.

“Here they are.” Anderson declared suddenly, coming to a stop and motioning towards three of what probably used to be cars.

Reborn’s eyebrows shot up. Lined up in a row before them were the half charred, half melted frames of three vehicles. The metal was oddly distorted in some places, and the paint, or what was left of it, was covered in caked soot. The windows had been removed, revealing that the scorched fabric of the seat cushioned had remained intact only near the doors, the entire middle section left gaping and empty.

“Someone spent a great deal of their time trying to wreck these cars” Anderson commented gravely.

“What do you mean?” Hana asked.

“Well you can’t see it now, but the windows were all broken.” Anderson said. “Plus those dents haven’t got anything to do with the fire. Looks like someone took a bat or something to the hoods.”

Reborn glanced back toward the cars, noticing the heavy dents caved into the metal, disguised by the soot.

“Classy.” Hana drawled

The hitman huffed. “Classy indeed. Rage is all the rage these days.”

Hana threw him an exasperated look. “That’s a large amount of anger for a small ass car dealership.”

Reborn’s phone buzzed, he glanced down at it, shrugging. “There’s not enough information yet. Let’s hope Hayato finds something, but for now we should head back. The press conference is going to start soon.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna tapped Kyoko’s shoulder with his free hand, taking in her furrowing brows and raw-bitten lip. “Don’t do that.” He said, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

Kyoko removed her teeth from her lip, smiling sheepishly at him. “Sorry.”

He shook his head, returning her smile with a reassuring look. “No worries. You’re allowed to be nervous just try not to chew through your lip.” Tsuna told her jokingly. “A hospital trip isn’t what we need right now.”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah.” A beat. “Walk me through everything again?”

Tsuna gave an indulgent smile. “Sure.”

He brought the papers up to his face, shuffling through them quickly. “Ok, so, when the filming starts, you’re going to start explaining the situation. Just run through the information we decided on releasing, and then stress that further widespread media coverage on the topic won’t help, and it could make things worse.”

Kyoko nodded, running a hand through her hair.

Tsuna continued. “After you’re done speaking they’re going to start asking questions. You’ve gone through the training so you know which ones are ok to answer, just remember to breathe, ok? It can get overwhelming.”

“Ok.” She breathed, shaking her arms out like she was preparing for some sort of boxing match. “Ok. Yeah, I’ve got this.”

Tsuna nodded, smiling slightly. Kyoko’s mouth set in a determined line as she made her way towards the entrance of the police station.

Tsuna trailed behind her, straightening as they came into view of the cameras. The numerous recording devices immediately trained on them as they made their way to the podium. The reporters shouted questions at them, their voices accompanied by the clicks of the cameras. Tsuna faintly wondered if this is what it was like to be a celebrity, quickly concluding that if that was the case he was happy to stick to his line of work.

Kyoko arrived at the small podium, resting her hands on the smooth wood as Tsuna came to a stop behind her.

The reporters fell silent in a sweeping hush as she leaned forward towards the microphone. She gave a cordial smile before opening her mouth to begin.

“Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming.” Kyoko paused. “My name is Kyoko Sasagawa, I’m a media liaison for the IOC. Behind me is SSA Tsunayoshi Sawada, our Unit Chief. I’m addressing you today on the subject of the recent abductions and subsequent murders of Sophia Carter and Olivia Torres.”

She leaned back, glancing down at her notes, then licking her lips in preparation to continue. “Both of the victims were college students in their early twenties, of a petite build, with brown hair and blue eyes. Within the last few days a third victim was abducted, a young woman by the name of Isabella Scott. We are currently searching for Ms. Scott and have not yet located her or the person responsible for her disappearance.”

Tsuna suppressed a proud smile as Kyoko pursed her lips and pushed forward. “We are working as quickly and efficiently as we can to ensure Isabella’s safety and to arrest the perpetrator, but to do that we need your help. Due to the nature of these crimes widespread media coverage will not be beneficial. It could hinder the investigation if the perpetrator were to withdraw or be harmful to Isabella if he lashes out. Because of these risks we’re asking you to please hold off until the case has been resolved. Other than that please do your best to remain safe, and be extra vigilant.”

Kyoko nodded after a small silence. “That’ll be all, thank you. Any questions?”

A cacophony of noise washed over them as the reporters began to call out all at once. Kyoko tensed, glancing back at Tsuna.

He nodded at her, smiling reassuringly.

Kyoko leaned back towards the mic, taking a deep breath. “Excuse me. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m happy to answer your questions, but one at a time please.”

There was an abrupt silence before a woman piped up in the back. “The time between the abductions and when the bodies are found is significant. What’s happening to these girls during that time?”

“As I’m sure you’ve all seen from the photos of the second crime scene that were leaked, the body was not in good shape. These girls are being extensively tortured.” She paused. “Which is all the more reason to do anything in our power to lessen their pain.”

There was a brief jumble of words as a couple of reporters tried to speak at the same time, but they sorted themselves quickly and a man nearer to the front asked, “You’re asking us not to report on these crimes, but the people have a right to know what’s happening. How could media coverage make it worse?”

“Good question. So far we’ve seen a great deal of care shown by the perpetrator to cover his tracks. Any large shift in emotion can be dangerous, but panic is especially bad because it makes people unpredictable. Seeing massive media coverage of his actions and calling for justice has the potential to cause that sort of reaction. We have to remember that at this point Isabella’s life is in his hands.”

Another voice piped up. “You mentioned not having figured who’s responsible for this. How much longer will that take? There are already two bodies, how many more do you need?”

“I’m afraid I can’t comment on the progress of the investigation. That’s classified information.”

Tsuna watched as she continued to answer questions, pride burning brightly in his chest. He paused suddenly, a blur of motion catching his attention out of the corner of his eye. He turned. The police chief was standing at the edge of the crowd of reporters, he gestured at Tsuna to go over to him, something in his expression screaming urgency.

Tsuna turned to Kyoko, tapping her shoulder and motioning towards Phillips. She glanced back at the reporters. “My apologies, it seems that that’s all we’ll have time for. Please, excuse us.”

They turned, making their way towards Phillips. When they got close enough the police chief turned and led them further away from the crowd, towards the station.

“What is it?” Tsuna asked quietly.

Phillips turned, looking grim.

“We just found another body.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tada!!! Please let me know what you liked/disliked down below!!!


	14. A Million Versions of You Pt. 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ............so, remember when I said I'd be updating every week like... 2 months ago? Yeeeeeeeeah. So, anyway, what we've learned from this is anytime I say anything about the schedule we don't believe it until we see it. On the bright side, this one is a lot longer than usual? 
> 
> *sigh* Anyways, I bring to you chapter 13! Please note that there is one part where Hayato is explaining how he found some things and I know nothing about hacking so I just made some reasonable-sounding things up. That part probably isn't accurate in the least. Also, there isn't any referenced rape in this character but torture is briefly mentioned and there's a description of a dead body.
> 
> Without further ado let's begin!
> 
> KHR belongs to Amano Akira  
> This AU is based on Criminal Minds, I may use some plot points from the show, but most things will be stuff I made up.  
> A lot of the locations in this fic will be real, but information on them might no be 100% accurate.
> 
> (Also my editor hasn't seen this yet so yeah)

`Los Angeles, USA`  
`October 20, 2012`  
`7:21 PM`

Tsuna unbuckled his seatbelt, moving to step out of the car almost before it had completely stopped. The door slammed shut somewhere behind him and Reborn and Hana were immediately at his side as he made his way towards the growing crowd.

The screeching sound of tires echoed off to the right, further up the street. Tsuna glanced over without stopping, noting the familiar Honda Civic.

The Scotts

_Fuck_

____________

By the time Kyoko had gotten her bearings the doors to the Civic had already burst open.

“Mr. and Mrs. Scott!” She cried.

____________

He pursed his lips.

_I was hoping they’d take longer to get here._

Tsuna jolted as a hand clasped his shoulder. He turned. Reborn wasn’t looking at him, but his hand gave a gentle squeeze and then released him.

He took a deep breath.

_Focus._

____________

They didn’t stop.

“Mr. and Mrs. Scott!” Kyoko screamed again, breaking into a sprint as they moved closer to the crowd. “Please, wait!”

____________

The crowd was somber, no one jostling, no one speaking. They immediately parted at the sight of the team.

Tsuna quickly flashed his badge to the officers positioned around the crime scene and ducked under the caution tape.

He suppressed a wince.

____________

Kyoko caught the edge of Mrs. Scott’s sleeve. The grief stricken woman gasped, catching her husband’s attention and both came to a stop.

“Wait, please.” Kyoko said, steadying her voice.

____________

Isabella’s body was strewn over the edge of the dumpster, the top of her head brushing against the ground.

A pool of dried blood had gathered on the concrete, sticking her matted hair to the ground. 

Bruises decorated her bare body, the darkest forming a swollen, blackened ring around her neck.

The rust colored gore clashed against the purple spiraling down her body. There was so much blood it was impossible to tell where it was all coming from.

Tsuna clenched his jaw.

“Get her down.”

____________

“I understand what you must be feeling right now.” Kyoko said, “But I have to ask you to stay here with me. A crime scene is no place for civilians.”

____________

Two medics gently lifted the body from the dumpster.

A horrified gasp ripped through the crowd as they laid her on a stretcher, the medics holding her paling slightly. Tsuna stepped forward quickly as Reborn and Hana moved to calm the crowd.

“Help me cover her.” He ordered, reaching for a sheet, pointedly ignoring the jagged lettering across her stomach.

**WHORE**

____________

As the crowd surged with a sudden storm of whispers Mr. Scott’s head whipped around.

“Wai–”

He turned and ran.

Kyoko took a few steps after him, but didn’t let go of Mrs. Scott.

“ _Tsuna!_ ”

____________

Tsuna turned, handing off the sheet to the other medic.

_Kyoko? What–_

There was a disturbance in the crowd, the murmurs growing louder as it began to hastily part. Mr. Scott shoved his way through, eyes wild.

Tsuna threw a glance behind him, confirming that the medics hadn’t quite closed the body bag yet.

_Shit._

Hana caught his arm as the man forced his way past the spectators and ducked under the tape. He shook her off, stumbling a few steps forward before his eyes landed on Isabella’s face and his knees seemed to lose strength.

Tsuna lunged forward, catching him before he could hit the ground. The man let out a shuddering breath.

“ _Isabella?_ N-No, please no. Not my baby girl.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

The room was shrouded in a heavy silence, their recent failure hanging over them. Tsuna massaged his head, wishing he could retreat to his hotel room and sleep this away.

Losing someone was always hard. It always felt like their fault because it _was_. The suffocating feeling of being too slow never got better no matter how normal it became. _God_ , this was the others’ first case and they already had to deal with this.

How could they pick themselves up from this when even he couldn’t despite the years of experience under his belt?

He could see the weight of it all etched into their faces, wasn’t it unfair to expect someone to push through all that?

_This is always when Stefánsson would tell us to get our shit together. We need to finish the case, so..._

Tsuna looked up at the others waiting for– He froze.

_For… Waiting for what?_

The others were all visibly pained by their recent failure, sitting slumped in their chairs, heads bowed. Even Hayato was silent over the line. Reborn glanced up at him.

_That’s– This is_ my _job. I’m the Unit Chief now._

Tsuna swallowed hard, the enormity of his position finally settling onto his shoulders. Everything had been _fine_ so far, but he hadn’t truly understood. He could give out orders, and train people, and wrangle them into behaving. But, _this_... He hadn’t considered _this_.

He hadn’t considered that all the things he’d been doing up until now weren’t everything. Those were things he’d done before. He was comfortable with them, and– Why hadn’t he considered that there was more to being Unit Chief? _He_ was responsible for them now. _He_ was the one in charge. 

Now, he needed to be level headed. He couldn’t show his unease or his guilt for failing. He couldn’t react emotionally because it was him that needed to lift the others off their asses. It was him who needed to push them forward all the way until the end. Him that needed to make the hard decisions that he’d both admired and resented Stefánsson for making. No one else was there to do that for him anymore.

Tsuna swallowed, eyes burning. 

He took a deep breath and stood up. “That’s enough.”

Everyone stiffened slightly giving him their attention.

“It’s alright to be upset that we didn’t save her, but wallowing isn’t acceptable.”

_I’m such a fucking hypocrite._

“When I asked you all to join me you agreed on the basis that you could handle it. Well, _this_ is what the job entails. It isn’t whatever glorified bullshit people think it is or how the media portrays us. It’s constant failure, death, despair, and most of all guilt. Guilt for every broken promise, everytime you weren’t quite fast enough– Just everytime _you_ weren’t _enough_.” Tsuna paused, “That’s never going away. You’ll never be enough. Accept it. It’s an occupational hazard. All you can do is get up and keep going because there’s always going to be more people to save.”

The others stared at him blankly.

“Get out your case files.” He said. “Let’s go over what we know.”

It was silent for a moment, before everyone moved in tandem. There were several seconds of reorganizing paper and shifting in seats before they looked back up at him.

He nodded. “So far there have been three victims, Sophia Carter, Olivia Torres, and Isabella Scott. All three went to different colleges and associated with different circles. Based on that and their physical similarities we hypothesized that they were surrogates for the object of the UnSub’s rage.”

“Right.” Hana nodded. “We also noticed the three of them were looking for partners using Tinder. Through that we assumed he must be using it to select his victims and get access to their information.”

“Looked into that.” Hayato cut in. “I compiled a list of software engineers and tech support staff that work for Tinder in LA county and fit the profile.”

Reborn looked up from his folder. “The profile being a caucasian male in his late twenties or early thirties. Highly sophisticated, a Sexual Sadist. It’s likely these girls are a surrogate for an ex partner of his based on the word ‘whore’ carved into Isabella’s body. Maybe she cheated on him?”

“Yeah, that also explains his clear disdain for these women.” Hana said. “We talked earlier about how he disposes of their bodies in dumpsters. If the person these surrogates are representative of cheated on him then it would explain his rage.”

“I agree.” Tsuna said. “Another thing we know is that he keeps to a three day cycle. He kidnaps his victims, holds and tortures them for three days and then kills them and dumps their bodies. The time between these abductions is getting progressively shorter, and with the clear escalation of literally carving the word ‘whore’ into Isabella I’d say we need to find him sooner rather than later. He’s getting more dangerous and if this continues he could devolve.”

They fell into a grim silence for a moment before Kyoko spoke up. “Do we know anything about his problem with Choice Vehicles?”

“I haven’t been able to find anything on that.” Hayato said. “I looked into the CEO, Timothy Jones, but I couldn’t find anything particularly interesting on him. Definitely no cheating scandals since he’s married to his high school sweetheart. I’ve been making my way down the chain of command, and right now I’m checking out the managers that work on site.”

“Maybe look further into Jim Edwards.” Reborn commented. “I doubt he had anything to do with the crimes but he did mention getting engaged before the first abduction. Could be coincidence, but it never hurts to check.”

Hayato made a small noise of understanding. “Got it, I’ll check it out.”

Tsuna closed his folder. “Alright. There’s a few things we need to do from here. Hayato, I want you to keep looking into the managers and anything else you think is important. Let us know if you find anything.”

“Sure thing.” The speakers crackled and went silent as Hayato hung up.

“Hana.” He said, turning towards her. “Now that the UnSub has killed Isabella we should have enough information for a complete geographical profile. I’d like you to complete it and then share it with Hayato.”

“You got it, boss.”

He turned to Kyoko. “I–”

There was a surge of noise coming from the lobby. Tsuna frowned, glancing towards the door of the conference room.

There was a loud knock. “Agents?”

_Phillips?_

“There’s a bit of a situation out here.”

Tsuna stood. “No worries, we’ll be right there.”

He motioned for the others to follow as he made his way out of the room. Phillips motioned over to where a young woman was sobbing in the arms of one of the officers.

Tsuna glanced at Kyoko who nodded and made her way over.

“What happened?” He asked, glancing over at Phillips. The man grimaced, a glimmer of frustration burning behind his eyes.

“There’s just been another abduction.” He said flatly.

Tsuna’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

_But it hasn’t even been 24 hours since Isabella’s body was found._

“Yeah, this guy’s getting ballsy too. He basically pulled up and grabbed her friend while she was standing there.”

Tsuna’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure this is our guy then? It sounds nothing like his MO.”

Phillips nodded, and grabbed a file from another officer, handing it over. “That’s the girl who was kidnapped.”

`Name: Julie Williams`

`Age: 22`

`Height: 5’3”`

`Weight: 105lbs`

`Hair: Brown`

`Eyes: Blue`

Tsuna pursed his lips, turning towards Hana and Reborn. “This level of devolution right now means he must’ve experienced another trigger. He just got a whole lot more dangerous and we need to find him quickly. At this point he might not even stick to his three day cycle.”

They nodded sharply.

“Hana, I still need that geographical profile. Get it to Hayato as soon as possible. Reborn, you’re with me, we need to take a look at the new abduction site.”

“Yes, Chief.” They chorused.

Tsuna turned, giving Kyoko a look and motioning towards the young woman. She nodded.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna sighed as he ducked under caution tape for the second time that day. He straightened.

“Well this is off brand.” Reborn commented, flatly.

Tsuna clicked his tongue. “Yeah, seriously.”

The street was nothing special. It was just a ways away from a residential area with various small company stores lining either side of the road. It was clearly not an overwhelmingly popular area, not drawing a crowd even around lunch time on a Saturday, but… still. There were just enough people around that it seemed strange to kidnap someone here especially with the competence this UnSub had already showed.

Tsuna took a few steps forward, standing facing the entrance to a bakery.

“So, they should’ve been right about here, right?” He murmured.

Reborn hummed in agreement. “Yes, Ms. Carpenter said they were looking at the cakes in the window.”

Tsuna nodded faintly, narrowing his eyes. He stepped to the side, turning to Reborn. 

“Stand here, please.”

The hitman made a face at him, but did as he asked.

“Should I admire and fawn over the oh-so-gorgeous cakes in the window as well.” He asked sarcastically.

“Why, yes.” Tsuna said with a grin. “I’m so glad you understand.”

Reborn scoffed, but once again turned to follow his instructions without complaint.

“Alright.” Tsuna said, backing away until he was standing in the street again. “So if I were going to kidnap you here, in broad daylight it’d need to be quick. I’d probably need some sort of vehicle that I could open wide enough to force someone into without it being a huge hassle.”

He closed his eyes, trying to imagine opening the back door to a van of some sort and hopping out onto the sidewalk. The girls would only be a few feet away.

He opened his eyes again. “So, I’d open the door and get out, right around here.” He stepped back onto the curb. “And from here I’m not quite visible to anyone in the bakery since the display window is backed with a curtain. I could run up behind you…” 

He closed the distance between him and Reborn grabbing the man by the shoulders and yanking him back so that he stumbled.

“If I was strong enough and caught you off guard it wouldn’t be that hard to force you into my van, and no one would have enough time to react properly before we’d be off again.”

He released Reborn who threw him an annoyed glance. Tsuna smiled at him. “Plus if I took the precaution of a mask of some sort it would’ve happened too quickly for anyone to provide a decent description of me. This all matches up with what Ms. Carpenter told us earlier.”

Reborn squinted at him. “Should we really be operating off of complete conjecture. I mean, sure, this seems obvious but there’s no actual evidence of it happening like that.”

Tsuna made a noise of understanding. “Reborn, what do you think your job is as a profiler?”

The hitman blinked. “You mean… in general?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“We’re supposed to solve exceptionally strange cases or cases no one else can figure out.”

“Why?” He asked, smiling slightly.

Reborn stared at him.

“It’s because we don’t operate on what anyone would call actual evidence.” Tsuna said.

“What do you mean?”

Tsuna took a deep breath. “Profiling is a pseudo science, Reborn. Some things we use to find the UnSub are completely useless in court and don’t qualify as evidence. Our job is to find leads where there are none with logical reasoning and human psychology. That’s also why our unit even exists in the first place.”

Understanding dawned on Reborn's face as he muttered, “We already have a similar mindset to the people we’re chasing.”

Tsuna hummed. “Which makes us better at our jobs. If profiling is like trying to solve a puzzle without the pieces, us having similar histories is like being able to imagine what the pieces might look like.”

Reborn hesitated, then nodded. “Fair enough.”

Tsuna nodded back.

“But,” Reborn continued. “If we’re operating on what you just laid out there’s a slight problem.”

Tsuna blinked. “What’s that?”

“To get away so quickly after the fact there would need to be someone else driving.”

He froze. “A… team?”

They exchanged a looked.

“We hadn’t considered that before.” Reborn said lowly.

“You’re right.” He agreed after a moment. “There weren’t any signs of a partner until now.”

The hitman cocked his head to the side, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Any chance this partner is a new addition?”

“You mean they’re somehow related to this new trigger?”

Reborn made a small affirmative noise.

“I’d say it’s possible if not more likely.” Tsuna sighed. “I’ll call Hayato and have him let the others know.”

His phone rang in his pocket. They both stared at it in surprise before glancing at each other. He pulled it out, checking the Caller ID.

_Hayato. Did something happen?_

He answered it, putting it on speaker.

“Hayato?” Tsuna asked. “What’s up?”

“Hey, is Reborn there?”

“I am.” Reborn said.

“Awesome. Listen, you two need to head over to Choice Vehicles right now, they had a break in early this morning, and, considering our UnSub’s history with them…”

“Yeah.” Tsuna said. “We’ll go right now… Also, tell the others we think there’s a partner, maybe a recent addition.”

“A partner?” Hayato asked. “Huh, ok, I’ll let them know, and I’ll factor it into my searches. Later, my lords.”

The line went dead. Tsuna locked eyes with Reborn.

“And this, my friend, is what devolution looks like.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Hana unrolled the county map with a flick of her wrists, letting it brush against the floor before yanking it up and pinning it back onto the case board.

She turned, quickly scanning the room for a sharpie before returning to her spot before the map. 

She sighed. The thing about geographical profiles was that as helpful as they were, their usefulness only came into play after a certain number of victims. It was nice to take the search from the entire county and move it into a limited space, but it wasn’t like they could just sit waiting for another body to drop.

Now, though, there were four abductions and three body dumps. That was more than enough information.

Hana uncapped the sharpie, double checking on her phone before drawing in the new body dump and abduction sites. She connected each of the points, looking on in satisfaction at the small overlapping area. With any luck Hayato could cut down that software engineer list with this.

She raised her phone, snapping a picture, and sent it off.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna scowled as he stepped into the office. He quietly took in the carnage blown across the room. Papers and files were overturned and scattered over the floor. The office chair was on its side, the arms having been broken off and embedded in the wall. There was a significant dent in the desk, seemingly from being bashed with the almost destroyed computer laying on the floor.

_Holy shit._

“What happened to make this guy’s rage spike this badly?” He asked, taken aback.

“I’m not sure if that’s what we should be asking.” Reborn grumbled. “The more accurate question would be, what the hell kind of person is he to get this angry?”

Tsuna clicked his tongue. “Yeah, you could say that again.”

He stepped further into the office, trying to avoid the papers on the floor and leaning forward to inspect the desk.

“Hey.” He said slowly, looking at Reborn over his shoulder. “This is the office you and Hana visited before, right? With the guy who got engaged?”

“Yeah.” Reborn said. “Looks like we’ve figured out who this guy’s got a problem with. And with the ‘whore’ hint…”

Tsuna nodded. “It’s not good. Do we know if anything was taken?” He asked, then blinked at the tired looking man that had appeared in the doorway. Reborn took a look at his face and turned as well.

“Mr. Edwards.” The hitman said in surprise.

“Agent Sinclair.” Edwards said wearily. “And… I don’t think we’ve met.”

Tsuna shook his head, stepping forward to offer his hand. “No, we haven’t. I’m SSA Sawada.”

“Agent Sawada, then…” He trailed off.

Tsuna studied him for a moment. “Do you know what happened here Mr. Edwards?”

He sighed and nodded. “It was around 8 in the morning, maybe a little earlier. We weren’t going to open until noon today because it’s the business’s anniversary, but I wanted to be sure no more cars were stolen. I didn’t even notice anything was wrong, not until I was knocked out from behind on the way to the bathroom.”

Tsuna nodded slowly. “Was anything taken?”

“Yeah, the guy took my keys.”

“Your keys?” Tsuna asked.

“Yes, he didn’t take my car, but–” His voice cracked. “My house keys… I–”

He fell silent for a moment then looked Tsuna in the eyes. “My fiance. She could be in danger.”

Tsuna nodded. “We’ll send someone to pick her up to ensure her safety. It might be better if you make your way to the station. Would you like to come with us or do you have someone else to drive you?”

Edwards shook his head. “One of my coworkers offered, thank you.”

“Ok.” Tsuna said, then glanced at Reborn. “We should get going.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Ok, wait.” Kyoko said. “So our UnSub trashed Mr. Edwards’ office and stole his keys. And, isn’t this the guy Reborn was talking about? The one who was engaged right before the murders started?”

“Yeah.” Hayato said. “I started looking into him immediately after. And… well, let me send you guys a picture of his fiance.”

Kyoko frowned, exchanging a look with Hana before reaching for her phone. She tapped on the newest notification, waited for the image to load before– She sucked in a breath, eyes widening.

“ _This_ is his fiance?” Hana asked incredulously.

“You bet it is.” Hayato confirmed. “What’s even worse is that the UnSub stole Edwards’ house keys. She could definitely be in danger. I’ve already messaged Phillips to send a patrol car over.”

Kyoko stared down at the picture. The woman was pretty, beautiful actually. She was petite, narrow shoulders, slim waist, didn’t look like she could be taller than 5’4”. She had sweeping brown hair that fell down to her mid back with what looked like natural highlights, clear blue eyes, and a cute beauty mark on her right cheekbone. 

In short she looked the exact type the UnSub had been hunting, only a little older. In fact, Kyoko would bet anything if they looked for a picture of her from her college years the similarities would be even more apparent.

“You didn’t send Tsuna and Reborn?” Hana’s sharp question broke her train of thought.

“I was going to and Tsuna offered, but they’re too far away. The station’s closer to their house.”

“What’s her name?” Kyoko asked quietly.

Hayato was silent for a moment. “Lisa Green. She’s 28 and a concierge at the Chamberlain West Hollywood Hotel.”

“And do we know her potential history with the UnSub?” She persisted. “Or his triggers? He’s obviously devolving, we need to send Tsuna, Reborn, and Hana into this as prepared as possible so they don’t get hurt.”

“You’re right.” Hayato agreed. “I did look into it, and, let me just say, it ain’t pretty. I went looking for posts on their instagram and twitter accounts that were related to their relationship and ended up finding the original video of Edwards proposing to her. It was posted on September 20th which is the day before the first car went missing from Choice Vehicles.”

Hayato paused for a moment before continuing. “I kept on that train of thought hoping to find the second trigger, and found out they posted their wedding date last night. I’d be willing to bet that’s what set this guy off.”

“And Lisa’s history?” Hana asked. “With the UnSub, I mean.”

“Yeah, the instagram account she has now only dates back to last year, so I wasn’t able to get anything from that. I found her alma mater from her Linkedin profile. I won’t explain all the technical stuff, but I basically found her old contact information and with a little sleuthing and… a few probably less than legal shortcuts I was able to pull up an archived copy of her account.”

“And?” Hana snapped impatiently.

“She was dating this guy. According to _his_ account, which is still up, he majored in Computer Programming. Using both accounts I managed to piece some things together. And, let me just say that he was _not_ a great guy. Possessive, controlling, and even emotionally abusive. She wouldn’t leave him, but clearly wasn’t happy since she cheated on him with another guy. Jim Edwards. There looks to have been some sort of confrontation one night and Lisa broke up with him. He basically spammed her with a variety of threats on her socials until she deleted all her accounts.”

“Wow.” Kyoko said softly.

“Yeah.” Hana agreed. “This sounds an awful lot like the person we’re looking for, what’s his name?”

“Oh, trust me, I’d bet my dick that this is our guy. His name is Jacob Robertson, he’s 26, and works as Tech Support for Tinder. I–”

The door to the conference room flew open and hit the wall with a bang. Tsuna and Reborn appeared, taking note of the ongoing call.

“I really hope you’ve got something Hayato.” Tsuna said. “Because Edwards’ fiance was just kidnapped.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna gripped the door handle for dear life as Reborn definitely broke the speed limit on the way to Robertson’s house.

He chewed on his bottom lip anxiously and checked the GPS for the nth time in the last minute.

3 minutes away. Not too far.

Tsuna tightened his grip as the car swerved violently to the left, sirens blaring. 

Earlier, they’d crossed paths with the patrol car sent for Lisa on the way back to the station. Apparently Edwards’ house had been in much the same shape as his office. Luckily there’d been no blood but at this point that didn’t mean much of anything.

The car came to a screeching halt, Tsuna’s seat belt locking to hold him in place as he jerked forward. He quickly leaned back to unbuckle it and threw himself out of the car, faintly aware of Reborn and Hana doing the same.

The chances that Lisa was the alleged partner in crime that Robertson seemed to have now were high considering there weren’t any signs of another person before. And, of course, both the office break-in and Lisa’s kidnapping happened before Julie’s abduction. He wondered briefly if he’d threatened her life or she’d been scared enough of him already to do as he asked.

They ran into the apartment complex pulling out their guns as they began to make their way up the stairs.

#22

#23

Apartment #24

They each took their position on either side of the door, guns ready. Tsuna held up his free hand counting down.

Three.

Two.

One.

Reborn kicked the door open. Hana darted around him, gun out, into the entryway, Tsuna following close behind her.

As the apartment opened up into the living room they split up. Hana strode towards the kitchen as Reborn and Tsuna began making their way down the hallway checking rooms.

“Clear.” Hana called out behind them.

“Clear.” He echoed.

There was a loud bang from across the hallway.

“Jacob Robertson, we’re with the IOC. Put your weapon down and take a step back.”

Tsuna hurried back out into the hallway, nearly colliding with Hana before rerouting himself and joining Reborn in the bedroom.

He fixed his gun on Robertson, taking in the situation.

Robertson was at the foot of the bed holding Julie up in front of him with a knife to her throat. It was clear he’d already started torturing her from the ropes binding her, her numerous cuts and the hysterics she was in. In the corner of the room Lisa was tied to a chair, sobbing.

Robertson was staring defiantly back at them, pulling Julie closer and pushing his knife harder against the skin of her neck.

“Jacob.” Tsuna snapped. “Put the knife down.”

“Get back.” He growled at them. “Don’t come any closer or I’m going to kill her.”

“You don’t have to do this, Jacob.” Hana said calmly somewhere off to his right. “Just put the knife down and then we can talk.”

“No, no, no, _no_! _Why_ are you here? Why did you come here, damn it!” He screamed. “This was supposed to be perfect. Everything was perfect. We’re finally together again, she got all my gifts. She finally came back to me from that stupid son of a bitch. Why are you _ruining_ this?”

Tsuna took a step forward, opening his mouth to say something.

“Don’t!” He roared. “I told you not to fucking come closer.”

“Jacob.” Tsuna said evenly. “What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?”

“What the hell do you mean? Isn’t it obvious? We’re finally together, we had road bumps just like any other couple, but now we can correct our mistakes. If we make this younger version of her suffer like she deserves and get rid of her together we can finally move forward.”

Lisa sobbed. “Jacob, just stop. Please–”

“Stop? _Stop_?” He asked hysterically. “I can’t stop. We have to make it right so we can be together, so you can be mine again.”

“Jacob.” Reborn said. “Look at her.”

Robertson’s eyes snapped over to the hitman. “Wha–”

“Lisa.” Reborn continued. “Look at her. Does she look happy to you?”

Robertson shifted so he could see Lisa while keeping them in his sights. He took in her tears with a blank face.

“She’s crying because she’s happy.” He said it like it was obvious. “Can’t you see how happy she is to finally be with me again? It’s the same as all her younger versions, they were so happy when I finally gave them the punishments they deserved.”

Tsuna studied him, noting the slight shake of his hand, and labored breathing despite the relatively calm tone of his latest reply.

_He’s frantic, desperate to make us go away. He’s scared this will all be taken away from him. The question is, will more pressure make or break him?_

“Really?” Tsuna asked. “Just like you were happy when she cheated on you with Jim Edwards?”

Robertson stiffened. “Don’t say his–”

“Oh, so you weren’t happy?” He drawled, lowering his weapon and taking another step forward. “But wasn’t that the punishment _you_ deserved? I mean after all the shit you pulled you’d think you’d be glad to finally be put in your place.”

Robertson’s eyes zeroed in on his face. Tsuna smiled, sharp and unforgiving.

“What’s wrong, Jacob? Aren’t I right? You isolated her from her friends and family, kept tabs on everything she did and anyone she was with. You got irrationally jealous and made a big deal out of every time she interacted with another man.” A hint of discomfort appeared on Robertson’s face and he took a few steps back. “You gaslighted her, making her think the only one she could trust was you. That only you could care for and love her, and that she shouldn’t want to be her own person. Only yours. She should only want to belong to you. To be your _possession_ not partner.”

Robertson slowly began shaking his head, eyes starting to grow wide.

“Why are you shaking your head, Jacob? Don’t like hearing that? That you manipulated her under the guise of love when you really couldn’t give less of a shit about her? Is that what she told you the night she and Jim went to see you? When she told you she didn’t love you anymore and wanted to break up with you? _Leave_ you because you’re an irredeemable scumbag that didn’t deserve her.”

“Stop.” Robertson’s voice cracked, the arm holding the knife beginning to shake more violently.

“Stop?” Tsuna asked, cocking his head to the side, taking another step forward. “No, I don’t think I will. What else did she say? That she was sick and tired of being told what to do and walk on eggshells around you. That she couldn’t truly look at you as a boyfriend because she was afraid of you?”

“Shut up.”

“Did she tell you that she’d much rather have her family than you and that you weren’t worth it? That she didn’t want to belong to you because she was her own person?” Tsuna paused, the corner of his mouth twitching into an imitation of amusement. “Did she tell you she didn’t want to be your _pet_ anymore?”

“I said _shut up_!” Robertson screamed, throwing Julie off to the side and lunging at him with a knife.

Before Tsuna could react Reborn was stepping in front of him, slamming the but of his gun into Robertson’s outstretched arm, forcing him to drop the knife. The hitman grabbed his wrist twisting until Robertson was bent over before kicking his legs out from under him. He pinned Robertson’s arms to his back and dug the muzzle of his gun into the man’s nape.

“Jacob Robertson.” He began flatly, shifting over to allow Hana to handcuff him before hauling him to his feet. “You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. If you can not afford an attorney, one will be provided for you–”

“Where are you taking me?” Robertson demanded, fighting as Reborn dragged him from the room. “No! Lisa! Lisa, no!”

“Shut up.” Reborn growled before the bedroom door slammed behind them.

Tsuna sighed looking towards Hana and the girls.

“Holy shit.” Hana said. “How did you do that?”

He grinned weakly. “It’s profiling on the fly, eventually when you get comfortable in the field you’ll be able to do something similar.”

He sighed, moving to untie Julie. “You’ll all develop your own styles, different ways of extracting information from people or getting through to them. But, well, you know I’ve always been good at picking people apart, so this is mine.”

Hana hummed from where she’d begun to free Lisa. “You know…” She said, glancing up at him. “No need to look so despondent over it.”

He furrowed his brow at her in confusion. She studied him. “You saved two lives today. Even with such a provocative method that has to count for something. So don’t sound so upset, it’s something you should be proud of.”

Tsuna’s eyes unfocused, usually… usually that’d be the case. Maybe it was because he was tired, or maybe it was something else but– _Pride, huh? If only._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tadaaaaaa! So we got some more Tsuna and Reborn interaction, some team badassery, and some character development for Tsuna as well as an introduction to what he thinks of himself. This is the end of the first official case! What did you think? Let me know what you liked/disliked as well as anything you think I could improve for future cases!


	15. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentines Day!!! Or not depending on where you are lol. This chapter's a little more light-hearted than the last one. Longer too! Enjoy <3
> 
> Also my editor hasn’t seen this yet so sorry about any mistakes (-_- ;)

`Los Angeles, USA`  
`October 21, 2012`  
`6:42 AM`

Tsuna yawned, rubbing his eyes gently.

_Ugh, I can wake up at ass o’clock for work but can barely stumble out of bed for anything else? Why must I suffer this tragedy?_

He flicked on the bathroom light, face scrunching up at the sudden brightness. Sighing, he reached for the sink, waving an arm out in front of him as he stumbled forward blindly.

_Curse the light._

After a few moments he oriented himself, waiting a bit for his eyes to adjust before brushing his teeth and taking a shower.

He sighed again, eyeing himself in the mirror. The water had succeeded in somewhat taming his hair, although it probably wouldn’t last long.

He stepped out of the bathroom.

Now, the only issue was packing… Tsuna stared at the hotel room with a grimace. How he’d managed to destroy the room to this extent already was beyond him. Somehow this _always happened_.

Tsuna groaned, moving to pick his clothes off the floor and shove them in his bag without bothering to fold them. Which, of course, inevitably led to him not being able to close the damn thing. He heaved himself up, kneeling on top of it as he struggled with the zipper. 

Tsuna huffed in exertion as he finally succeeded, not moving from his place on top of the suitcase as he tried to catch his breath.

_I really shouldn’t be so out of breath from just this. Maybe I should take Tsuyoshi up on that offer for extra training_

Tsuna blinked.

_Ugh, no, nevermind, that’d be horrible._

His phone pinged from the nightstand. Tsuna heaved himself up with a dramatic groan. He stumbled over to grab his phone, quickly checking his home screen.

`**Kyoko:** Are you still in your room? I got you breakfast.`

`**Tsuna:** You fucking goddess.`

`**Tsuna:** Coming rn`

Tsuna checked the time, noting that they’d need to leave soon. He hauled the suitcase off the bed, checking to be sure he had the room key. He glanced back at the room, briefly cringing in regret at the unmade bed before making his way to the elevator.

He wandered down the hall to the elevators, noticing, as he got closer, that Reborn was already there, waiting. Before he could call out, the hitman turned, spotting him. Tsuna’s face spasmed, unsure whether to be impressed or creeped out. 

Reborn smirked. “You walk really loud, idiot.”

“Right.” He sighed, approaching his colleague.

Tsuna scrutinized the other man, nose wrinkling in annoyance. The expression drew out a chuckle. “What’s that for?”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Tsuna grumbled at him. “Being so put together in the morning.”

Reborn snorted at him, shoving him into the newly arrived elevator in lieu of giving an answer.

They fell silent. Watching the elevator monitor count down the floors to the lobby.

The doors opened with a ding.

“Tsuna!”

He turned as he stepped out of the elevator, smiling at the sight of Kyoko hurrying towards them from the entrance.

“Morning, Kyoko.” He greeted.

She grinned holding two coffee cups out to them. “Good morning! I got everyone something from the coffee shop on the corner.” She extended one of the cups closer to him. “This one is yours, Tsuna. I figured you’d want hot chocolate.”

“Thank you.” Tsuna said, accepting his cup.

Reborn hummed in agreement, taking his coffee from Kyoko. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” She said, then motioned towards the waiting area. “There are croissants over by Hana.”

_When did she have time to get all of this?_

Tsuna glanced at her worriedly as they began to make their way over. “How long have you been awake?”

“Ah. An hour maybe.” Kyoko said. “Don’t worry, though. I wasn’t tired earlier, but now I’ll definitely sleep on the plane.”

“If you say so.” Tsuna paused. “Drink some coffee though, we still have to do a final sweep of the station.”

Hana glanced up from her phone as they stopped in front of her. “Took you long enough, monkeys.”

Tsuna laughed, reaching down to grab a croissant from the bag. “Sorry about that, I’m really not a morning person.”

Reborn snorted. “Yeah no shit, I could hear you falling out of bed from across the hall.”

Heat bloomed across his face. “No one asked you.”

Kyoko giggled. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No.” He said, pouting a bit.

“Hey.” Hana grumbled at them. “Can we leave now, or...?”

“Wow.” Reborn said. “Looks like Tsuna’s not the only non-morning person. Or maybe… What were you and Kyoko up to instead of sleeping?”

“You–”

Tsuna snorted as the pair dissolved into an argument.

“Who knew they’d get along so well.” Kyoko whispered.

He choked a bit on his croissant. “ _That_ is getting along to you?”

She laughed. “Oh come on, you know Reborn likes to antagonize anyone he likes. And Hana’s basically the same way.”

Tsuna nodded. “True.”

“Excuse me.” A soft voice called out to them. They turned to the concierge. “Your car is here.”

“Thank you.” Kyoko said.

Tsuna turned towards their other party members.

“You two.” He called, grabbing his suitcase. “Time’s up. Decide who wins or postpone the match.”

Reborn scoffed. “Match? This isn’t even a competition, I obviously win.”

“Excuse me?!”

Tsuna sighed as the bickering kicked up again on the way out of the building. “Lord give me the strength…”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna flipped through the stack of documents one last time before straightening with a smile. He held out a hand to Chief Philips. “It was a pleasure working with you. We’ll get the proper paperwork done as soon as we get back.”

Phillips grinned. “The pleasure was all mine. You’ve got some good people with you. Keep up the good work.”

Tsuna nodded at him. He turned and rejoined the rest of his team bidding their farewells to a few other officers.

_Time to go home._

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna grunted softly as he heaved his suitcase up into the overhead compartment. The plane was quiet, thankfully. Hana had seemingly woken up enough to ignore Reborn, and Kyoko had passed out in her seat almost immediately.

He sighed. It wasn’t unusual not to be able to sleep after a case. Sometimes the adrenaline rush you got near the end lingered longer than what was appreciated.

_At least she’s sleeping now, though._

Tsuna turned, opening the compartment behind him to pull out a folded blanket. He stepped over to Kyoko, covering her with it before going to take a seat by Reborn and Hana.

“We have blankets?” Hana asked, perking up. “Can I have one?”

Tsuna groaned. “I just sat down, get it yourself.”

“Rude.” She grumbled, slumping back against her seat with a pout.

“What, did your legs stop working?” Reborn asked.

“Oh my goodness, stop!” Tsuna groaned, smacking the hitman on the arm. “Stop arguing, you’re giving me a headache, damn it.”

Reborn smirked at him. “How about you be the mediator? Just say I win and we’ll stop.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Hana sassed. “I totally won.”

“You? Win against me?” The hitman snorted. “You’ve got a one in a million chance normally, but come on, your brain is only half functioning right now. Be realistic.”

“Don’t test me, you overgrown, narcissist of a child.”

“A child, huh?” Reborn tilted his head to the side. “I’m older than you, though? So if I’m a child, what does that make you? A fetus?”

“A _what?_ ”

“Fetus face.” Reborn said petulantly. Tsuna blinked, a sudden image of Reborn sticking out his tongue coming to mind.

Hana sputtered before huffing in defeat and slumping against her chair. Reborn turned to him, wiggling his eyebrows. “How’d I do?”

Tsuna huffed. “You are _not_ as cute as you think.”

“You’re right. I’m cuter.” Reborn declared confidently.

Tsuna rolled his eyes, ducking his head to hide an amused smile.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna winced as he cracked his neck. Airplanes were the fucking worst sometimes. Especially when traveling with two dumbasses who think it’s funny to reposition your sleeping body as unpleasantly as possible.

He glared at Hana, not even bothering with Reborn knowing he’d only get laughed at. She smiled weakly back at him, no doubt having flashbacks to the verbal ass whooping he’d given them not even 30 minutes ago.

Tsuna huffed, still annoyed, but moving on.

“So.” Kyoko spoke up, traces of laughter coloring her voice. “Are we almost there?”

Tsuna hummed, taking in the partition between them and the driver before turning towards the window.

“Yeah.” He said, recognizing the area. “We should be there in about 15 minutes.”

“Thank God.” Hana muttered.

“Paperwork.” Reborn reminded her.

“Fuck.”

Tsuna snorted.

“Don’t laugh.” Hana snapped at him. “Do we really have to do it tonight?”

He sighed. “Yes, unfortunately. I hate it too, but if we wait any longer we could forget details.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hana groaned. “I get it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Tsuna laughed, falling silent as the others continued to converse. 

He glanced back at the window. The sun was setting so it was probably around 5 or 6. It probably wouldn’t take horribly long to finish everything once they got back. _Maybe… Ah, no, they probably wouldn’t want that._

The partition lowered as the car slowed to a stop.

“Agents, we’ve arrived.”

Tsuna smiled. “Great, thank you.” 

He payed the driver before unbuckled his seat belt, scooting over to get out of the car. He shut the door, moving to help Reborn get their bags from the trunk.

They grabbed their respective luggage and made towards headquarters.  
The team stepped into the lobby. The woman at the front desk glanced up at them, zeroing in on him almost immediately.

“Chief Sawada?” She called.

“Yes?”

“SSA Yamamoto wanted to speak with you. He said it was urgent.”

“Ah.” He paused, then nodded. “You guys go ahead. I’ll be right there.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“I wonder what that was about.” Kyoko murmured.

Reborn shrugged. “It’s Tsuyoshi, he probably wants to know how we did.”

“Hopefully we don’t end up with extra training.” Hana grumbled.

Reborn smirked at her. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but I’ve certainly done enough to avoid that particular fate.”

She glared at him. “Don’t even start. I don’t have any more energy to deal with you today.”

Kyoko laughed. “Wow, congratulations, I think you’re the first to wear her down. Guess you’ll have to go bother Tsuna now.”

Hana gasped. “Kyoko, how could you? I haven’t been _worn down!_ ”

Reborn’s lips ticked up into a small smile. Being part of the BAU was certainly an experience. It was nice to rely on people like this. It kind of reminded him of– _Don’t think about that. Not right now._

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to reveal Hayato. The hacker perked up.

“You guys!” He exclaimed before registering that Tsuna wasn’t with them. He turned away. “Oh. Nevermind, I don’t care.”

Hana scoffed. “Wow, _rude_. Our plane could’ve crashed in the Pacific ocean. We could be ghosts for all you know.”

Hayato rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. I know enough about ghosts to be able to recognize them on the spot.”

“Nerd monkey.” She huffed.

“She-chimp.”

“Come on, guys.” Kyoko cut in. “We just got back, let’s not do this right now.”

Hayato grinned. “Oooh, that’s right. You guys have _paperwork_ , don’t you? Sucks to suck, I guess.”

The three of them groaned.

“Please.” Hana said, defeated. “Don’t remind me. I want to live in peace until I get to my desk.”

“Sadly, your time is coming to an end.” Reborn told her. “Get a move on, peasant.”

“Wow, no need to make it sound like such a threat.” Hana said dryly as Kyoko dragged her away to her desk.

Reborn smirked after them, before turning to glance back at the elevator. _Hopefully that talk won’t take too long. He looked kind of tired…_

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tsuna groaned, letting his head fall against his desk. His right hand was aching after writing not only his own report, but also the field assessments for the others. Why did he have so much fucking paperwork anyway?

_Just another thing I didn’t consider ahead of time._

There was a knock on the door to his office. He sighed heavily, turning his head so that the side of his face was resting against the cool wood. He hissed as the crick in his neck throbbed painfully, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Come in.” He called.

The door creaked as it swung open and then shut with a click. Tsuna didn’t bother opening his eyes. He took a deep breath trying to keep as still as possible hoping his neck would relax.

“Is it bad?” A familiar baritone questioned.

Tsuna made a questioning noise.

“Your neck hurts doesn’t it?” Reborn continued. “From when we were messing with you on the plane.”

“Ah. A little.” He said, repressing a wince as his muscles contracted again. “It’s really not that bad, though.”

Reborn huffed, footsteps coming closer. “You’re a horrible liar.”

“Am not.” Tsuna argued, flinching a little when Reborn rested his hands on his shoulders. “You aren’t gonna murder me are you?”

The hitman laughed lightly. “No, I’m not, idiot. I’m giving you a massage, be grateful.”

“A wha–” Tsuna cut himself off with a gasp as Reborn dug his fingers into the knot at the base of his neck.

“A massage, dumbass.” Reborn repeated.

“You don’t n-need to.” Tsuna told him, voice faltering as Reborn pressed into another sore spot.

“You’re right, I don’t.” The hitman conceded. “But I want to. I feel bad.”

“I might believe you more if I couldn’t hear you smiling.” Tsuna said, corners of his mouth lifting.

“You really are a profiler, huh?” Reborn commented, amusement coloring his voice. “Maybe I do feel bad, but you’re also about to be forcefully brought to dinner and Hana’s decided you’re paying.”

Tsuna paused, warmth bubbling in his chest as a smile tugged at his lips. _Dinner, huh? I guess I was wrong, they were interested._

He laughed softly. “Aaah, I see. So you’re buttering me up, is that it?”

“Hmm, yes.”

“Fair enough.” Tsuna said, smile growing. He jerked a bit as Reborn kneaded harshly into another knot. “And if I plan to hole up in this office instead?”

“Well, then, I suppose I’ll have to kidnap you.” Reborn paused before humming toughfully. “Or steal your wallet. Either one, I’m not picky.”

Tsuna’s shoulders shook with laughter. He cleared his throat. “Is that so? Well, Agent Sinclair, I hate to inform, but I believe both are in direct violation of your contract with–”

Tsuna cut himself off with a groan as Reborn jabbed at his neck petulantly. “Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t quite hear, would you care to repeat yourself?”

He snorted. “Put together a team of criminals, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”

“Pot, kettle.” Reborn declared.

They fell into a comfortable silence as Reborn continued to work at his neck. After a while the hitman removed his hands. 

It took Tsuna a second to realize the pain was gone. His eyes fluttered open. “You’re actually very good at that.”

Reborn scoffed, moving towards the door. “Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m good at everything.”

Tsuna sat up, gathering his things. “So where are we going? If I’m paying it better be decent.”

“Well, Hayato was set on Mexican, but I told him if he tried to drag us to a taco joint place in Italy I’d burn all his UMA research.” Reborn turned to him. “So now we’re at a stand still, and you get to choose. Courtesy of Kyoko’s good will.”

Tsuna stood grinning teasingly. “Great. Let’s go with Mexican.”

“Don’t you dare.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

They did not, in fact, go to a Mexican place.

In the end Tsuna decided to bring them to one of his favorite restaurants. Ironically, it was a pizza place. The reason he liked it, though, was the various other items on the menu. The carbonara was his favorite (and the iced chocolate). Also, it was conveniently close to Dolce per Cuore, his favorite patisserie.

“I still can’t believe you don’t like pizza.” Hayato grumbled at him.

“Oh, come on!” Tsuna whined. “You’ve known for months now.”

“And it’s still just as shocking.” Reborn said. “I mean, what is wrong with you?”

“It’s not _that_ weird.” He refuted stubbornly.

They stared at him silently. He pouted.

Kyoko laughed softly. “You’re so cute, Tsuna-kun.”

Tsuna blinked. “Tsuna… kun?”

She tilted her head to the side for a moment before realization washed over her. “Ah, I forget you’ve never been to Japan. It’s an honorific. I haven’t used them in a while, but old habits die hard, I guess.”

“Oh.” He said, head tilting to the side. “You can call me that if you want. I don’t mind.”

Her face lit up. “Really?”

Tsuna smiled gently. “I mean, yeah. I don’t care, so if it makes you happy then go ahead.”

“Oh?” Hana asked, raising an eyebrow. “Perfect, then I shall call you by your rightful title. Sawada-dono.”

Kyoko broke into a fit of giggles. “Hana, no!”

“Hana, _yes_.”

Tsuna blinked in confusion. 

“Sawada-dono?” He asked, narrowing his eyes at Reborn’s smirk. “Alright then, _Regina Scimmia_ ”

Hayato choked on his soda. “Monkey–” He coughed, breaking into a fit of laughter. “Monkey _Queen_.”

Hana’s jaw dropped. “Wha–”

“It fits.” Reborn said approvingly, sipping his coffee leisurely. “Although I’m not sure we could call you Queen. More like Monkey Minion.”

Hayato clasped a hand over his mouth as he started to convulse in a, quite frankly, concerning way. After a few moments he regained control over himself long enough to say. “But could she even be _considered_ a monkey? I mean that’s what she calls everyone else.”

“Yeah.” Tsuna agreed thoughtfully. “Good point. Wouldn’t she be more like the Commander of Bananas?”

Kyoko keeled over in laughter, tipping out of her chair when Hana inadvertently smacked her in the midst of her indignant flailing.

The table paused to look down at their liaison.

“Wow.” Hayato drawled, shooting Hana an unimpressed look. “Shoving her out of her chair. What a _great_ friend.”

“Hey!” Hana squawked. “It wasn’t on _purpose_.”

Kyoko hid a smile behind her hand. “Oh? Intent matters? So you won’t take responsibility for this egregious sin?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Hana groaned “Not you too!”

The group burst into laughter. Kyoko pushed herself back up into her chait.

“Don’t worry.” She said, still giggling and placed a hand on Hana’s shoulder. “I know you’re a good friend.”

Hana stilled, blushing lightly. “Yeah.” She said faintly. “You too.”

The two of them paused, staring at each other in silence.

A beat.

Then another.

Tsuna fidgeted uncomfortably, glancing at the others. Hayato fake gagged.

“H-Hey!” Hana stuttered, blushing faintly. “I saw that, monkey!”

Tsuna leaned closer to Reborn, tuning out the argument. “They’re really not dating?”

The hitman scoffed. “No. If they were maybe they’d get a room instead of eye-fucking each other in front of us.”

Tsuna snorted, leaning back against his chair. He observed the group quietly, listening but not quite hearing the banter still going on across the table. Someone said something, causing the group to burst into loud laughter again. Out of the corner of his eye Tsuna caught the restaurant owner shooting them a fond smile.

Well, at least she wasn’t upset by the noise. Mrs. Rossi was a nice old lady who always doted on him whenever he came here and– _Now that I think about it I’ve never come here with other people, have I? She must’ve seriously thought I had no friends._

He stilled. Friends? What friends did he think he had? _I mean, now I have..._ He glanced at the others. _But before?_

He shook his head slowly as he drew a blank. _There was no one. When’s the last time I even ate with someone else?_

The noise of the restaurant washed over him, loud but unrecognizable. Now that he thought about it, when _was_ the last time? He never ate with his previous team, and definitely never with his contacts in the Mafia. Hell, he’d never even eaten with Iemitsu when they were together.

He flinched lightly at a shrill cry coming from somewhere to his left. He turned slowly, eyes falling on a young girl, around 5 or so, crying. A man hurried over and kneeled in front of her, smiling gently as he rubbed her back soothingly. He was saying something to her when a woman squatted down next to them. She gave the girl a bright smile and pulled her into a hug.

His heart stung. Tsuna glanced away.

“Hey.”

He blinked, snapping out of his trance. He glanced at Reborn who was looking at him in concern.

Tsuna stared at him for a beat. Then his eyes crinkled. “Hey yourself.”

The hitman raised an eyebrow at him. “You good?”

“Yeah.” He said, chest aching pleasantly at his concern. “I just realized that Mrs. Rossi must’ve thought I had no friends.”

Reborn snorted. “You don’t have friends. You have leeches. Now that they’ve latched onto you, I don’t think there’s any getting rid of them, unfortunately.”

Tsuna laughed. “Are you calling yourself a leech?”

Surprise flickered across Reborn’s face as if he were shocked Tsuna would consider him a friend. But then he just smiled. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Tsuna grinned. “Ok, I’ll take it. Leeches are acceptable.”

“Excuse me, what?” Hana asked, seemingly just tuning into their conversation.

His smile widened. “Don’t worry about it.” Tsuna dismissed brightly. “I was thinking earlier, do you guys want to get some pastries from across the street and come over to my place? I figured your first ever completed case deserves a little celebration.”

“Really?” Hayato asked, wide-eyed.

“Yeah, if you want to.”

“That sounds fun, Tsuna-kun.” Kyoko agreed.

“Yeah, I’ll go.” Hana chimed in.

“Me too.” Hayato said.

Tsuna glanced at Reborn. The hitman smirked. “Sure.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Ah! Tsuna!” The young woman at the counter exclaimed as they walked into the shop. “You brought friends.”

He grinned. “Yeah, these are my colleagues: Reborn, Hayato, Kyoko, and Hana. Guys, this is Violetta Brambilla, her family owns this shop.”

She let out a thunderous laugh far too loud in comparison to her tiny frame. “Finally you bring me some customers!”

Tsuna scoffed. “Oh, I see. So _that’s_ why you keep pestering me to come.”

Violetta snickered.

He rolled his eyes, turning to the others. “I’ve been here plenty of times, so you guys pick whatever you want.”

“Are you sure?” Kyoko asked.

He nodded. She beamed. “I haven’t had cake or pastries in so long. I used to have one day every month where I’d treat myself, but I stopped when we moved from London.”

“Ah, a lady of culture, I see.” Violetta said appraisingly. “You should start that up again, cake is the food of the soul. Good cake means a good life.”

“Please, don’t feed her your nonsense.” Tsuna said dryly.

“Nonsense? Whatever do you mean? It’s good advice!”

He huffed. “Next thing I know you’ll–”

“Tell you what, I started this thing a while ago. It’s basically this group that meets here every other Saturday afternoon to socialize and try out new desserts. You can come join us anytime.”

“–be telling her that.” Tsuna sighed.

“That sounds so fun.” Kyoko said. “I’d love to come by sometime.”

Violetta grinned. “Great. Can I get your number?”

Tsuna was distracted from their conversation by Hana nudging him in the ribs. He raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

“How do you know all these restaurant owners?” She asked.

“Well, to be honest, I really suck at cooking.” He said. “So, I go out to eat a lot. That’s how I met most of them.” 

“Most of them.” Hayato chimed in.

“Ah, yeah.” Tsuna said. “I met Violetta because I used to tutor her little sister, though.”

Hana blinked at him owlishly. “You used to tutor people?”

He sighed. “Yeah, in criminal law.”

“Ah. That makes more sense.”

“I feel like I should be offended.”

“Tsuna!” Violetta called. “I have everything ready.”

“Great, thank you.” He said, pulling his wallet out to hand her his card. “How’s everyone doing?”

“They’re good. Evelina’s doing really well in school, and mother and father recently went on a vacation to Malta. I’m taking care of the shop until they get back.”

“Oh, I’m glad. They’ve been working hard, they deserve a break.” He said, accepting the card back.

“That’s exactly what I told them. But,” She shrugged. “You know how they are. They put up a hell of a fight until Evi sat them down and told them they were graying.”

Tsuna laughed. “That sounds exactly like her.”

“Indeed it does.” Violetta grinned. “Anyway, thanks for stopping by, I hope you all have a great night. Feel free to come again any time.”

They waved, calling out various goodbyes as they stepped back into the street.

Kyoko glared at him accusingly. “And why have you not brought us here before?”

He let out a small chuckle. “I just haven’t been in awhile. The last time I came was for my birthday.”

Group turned to look at him in unison.

He blinked. “What?”

“When _is_ your birthday?” Hayato asked.

“October 14th.” He said.

The group gaped at him.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Kyoko asked him, an upset frown making its way across her face.

“I- I mean, I don’t know? It just felt weird to bring up all of the sudden.” Tsuna said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Well, how about the rest of you? Reborn?”

The hitman smirked at him. “October 13th, actually.”

Tsuna’s jaw dropped. “No way! Seriously?”

“Not you too!” Kyoko gasped. She turned to Hayato pleadingly. “What about you? Your’s hasn’t passed, has it?”

The hacker gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Kyoko. Mine’s September 9th.”

Kyoko’s face fell, clear disappointment. Tsuna felt a surge of guilt, if he’d known it’d be that important to her he would’ve said something. _Some people really do care about birthdays, huh? Good to know, I’ll be sure to throw parties for the two of them when the time comes._

“Well, when are your birthdays? Maybe we can still do something for them.” He said.

“March 4th for her and April 20th for me.” Hana said, glancing down at Kyoko, who seemed lost in thought.

“I know!” Kyoko exclaimed, suddenly. “We’ll just celebrate them all now. We’re all together, and we’re going to Tsuna’s place, and we have cake. It’s perfect.”

Tsuna blinked. “W-We don’t hav–”

He froze. _Wait, we’d also be celebrating Reborn and Hayato’s birthdays. I can’t say no to that, what if they want to?_

“Sure.”

Hana looked at him in surprise, and Kyoko’s excited smile grew. “Really?”

“I mean, yeah.” He glanced at Reborn and Hayato. “As long as you guys are alright with it.”

Hayato grinned. “Sounds fun.”

Reborn shrugged. “Why not?”

Hana blinked at him, glancing between him and the other celebrants and the surprise faded from her expression. 

_Ah, she knows me way too well._

“Let’s go!” Kyoko called, running ahead.

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you, 

Happy Birthday Tsuna, Hayato, and Rebo-orn, 

Happy Birthday to youuuuu.”

Tsuna plastered on a smile, repressing a wince as his eardrums shriveled and died. Reborn and Hayato’s reactions must’ve been equally subpar because Hana gasped indignantly at them.

“Hey! What’s with those reactions?” Hana asked, stalking over to Hayato and pulling his hands away from his ears to yell at him.

Tsuna sighed, turning to Kyoko. “It’s… really not you. It’s entirely Hana.”

“I heard that, stalker monkey!”

He whined at the name. “Oh come on, that was years ago, can’t you let it go?”

“Nope.” She said, popping the p.

“Ok, ok.” Hayato said, seemingly recovered from the ear splitting rendition of the Happy Birthday song. “I’m actually so curious about this. You mentioned this before when we were going to recruit the girls, but how _did_ you meet Hana? We need details!”

Tsuna laughed nervously. “Oh, come on. You can’t be _that_ curious.”

“All in favor of forcing them to tell the story, say aye.” Hayato declared. “Aye.”

“Aye.” Kyoko echoed.

“Aye.” Reborn said with a smirk.

“Ha… ha.” Tsuna forced out. “...Seriously? Please no.”

“Oh, this’ll be fun.” Hana laughed.

Reborn’s smirk took on a slightly terrifying edge. “Come on, Tsuna, don’t make us tie you down.”

Kyoko and Hayato’s smiles sharpened from where they were standing behind the hitman.

Tsuna felt the blood drain from his face. _Oh my God, there are three now. He’s raised baby demons._

“O-ok, ok. L-Let’s get the cake out first?”

____________

He sighed, massaging his head. “So… It all started like this…”

_Tsuna looked down at his most recent photo critically. If he were to take this home, his father would only tell him it was too blurry._

_He sighed, resigned to the fact that he’d be stuck following Hana for the next few hours. At least his father lent him the van, telling him not to get caught with it since he wasn’t legal yet._

_Tsuna looked up, biting back a curse when he realized that Hana was nowhere to be found. He scanned the street frantically, trying to spot her in the crowd._

_He jumped nearly a foot when someone knocked on the passenger side window._

_It was Hana._

_He stared._

_She stared back, unimpressed._

_After a few more moments he rolled down the window._

_“Why are you stalking me, monkey?”_

_He hesitated. “Um… because?”_

_He cringed at his response, his father’s lessons on expressing himself confidently echoing through his head._

_“I mean– I’m supposed to. Follow you. But like– I mean, not like that. Well, yes, like that. But I’m supposed to get a picture. Of you. I was sent to get a picture of you.”_

_He flushed. That was worse than the first try._

_She snorted at him._

_“Then take one.”_

_“Huh?”_

_“Take a picture of me. You suck at this, so I’d bet anything I’m just practice. Plus, you’re annoying. So take a picture and leave.”_

_Tsuna fumbled with his camera, scrambling to take her picture before she changed her mind._

_He focused the lens on her face and–_

_He paused, lowering the camera again._

_“What?” Hana snapped at him, probably annoyed that he was hesitating now._

_“U-uh, well, t-the memory is full.”_

_She stared at him. “Are you serious?”_

_He winced. “Yes.”_

_There was a long silence. Hana heaved a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose._

_“Get out.” She said._

_“W-Wha–”_

_“I said get out. Get out of the damn car, monkey.”_

_He swallowed hard, unbuckling his seatbelt and stepping out of–_

“You are _such_ a liar.” Hana quipped, disbelievingly. “You were definitely not that graceful or quick.”

“I didn’t even say I was graceful.” Tsuna said.

“Exactly, and you were still overestimating it. That’s how bad it was.” Hana sighed. “It was more like this…”

_U-uh, well, t-the memory is full.”_

_She stared at him in silence. Was this guy for real? How?_ How? _Literally how many goddamn pictures of her had he taken to run out of memory?_

_“Are you serious?” She barked._

_The kid flinched so hard it was more of a full body spasm. “Yes.”_

_Hana dropped her head in her hands. Unbelievable. This monkey was lucky he was entertaining. Well, she wasn’t busy anyway._

_“Get out.” She told him._

_“W-Wha–”_

_“I said get out. Get out of the damn car, monkey.” She cut him off, rolling her eyes._

_He nodded furiously, going to unbuckle his seatbelt, only to forget he was holding his camera and dropping it down by his feet._

_“A-ah, hang on a second.” He stuttered, lunging for it only to be stopped by his seat belt locking around his chest. He gasped, his leg jerking and sending the camera tumbling beneath the seat._

_He glanced at her nervously and reached to undo his seatbelt only for the button to jam._

_Hana watched this unfold, slack-jawed in disbelief as the boy finally managed to get the seatbelt off before squirming his way under the steering wheel and somehow fitting his entire body into that space with the gas pedal and break._

_He pressed his cheek against the floor of the car, reaching an arm out under the seat to feel around for the camera._

_“Got it!” He cried out. The kid pulled his arm out, accidentally cutting it on one of the metal pieces under the seat._

_Un-_ fucking _-believable._

_“A-ah.” He jerked up, smacking his head against the underside of the steering wheel. “Ow, ow, ow.”_

_The boy sniffled, pulling his injured hand, and his camera to his chest and then paused. He craned his neck up and looked back at Hana with watery eyes._

_“I’m stuck.” He whimpered._

Tsuna wrinkled his nose in irritation. “That did not happen.”

“It totally did.” Hana said, hand darting out and grabbing his wrist. “Look you still have the scar.”

Tsuna huffed. “Whatever.”

“Let’s continue shall we?” Hana said with a gleeful grin.

_She sighed, walking around to the other side of the car and opening the door. The boy came tumbling out into the street._

_He stared up at her with wide eyes. “I-I’m not always t-this bad.”_

_“Somehow I find that hard to believe.” She told him._

_“N-No, really. My dad’s teaching me. I-I’ve pretty much shaken my clumsiness now.”_

_Slowly she looked back towards the car, then back at him. He flushed._

_Hana smiled. He was cute._

_“What’s your name monkey?”_

_“Tsuna.”_

_The boy– Tsuna– stood, then promptly fell back over._

The group broke out into laughter.

“It’s not that funny.” Tsuna whined.

Hayato fell to the floor wheezing. “I-I can’t breathe.”

He huffed, trying to ignore the fact that even Kyoko was face down on the counter, shaking. 

At least Reborn– Well he wasn’t outright laughing at him. They could _try_ to contain themselves.

“And that was all well and good, but then as we were crossing the street to go buy a bandage he tripped over air and broke his leg in the middle of the intersection.” Hana deadpanned.

“ _That_ did not happen.” Tsuna yelled at her.

“Fine. Your ankle, not your leg.”

“No! I _sprained_ my ankle. Not broke! There’s a difference.” He stressed.

Hana rolled her eyes. “Ok, sprained. You didn’t think that makes it any better, did you?”

Tsuna huffed. “Whatever.”

Reborn broke, breaking into a fit of laughter with the others. Tsuna pouted.

_He has a nice laugh– No! Not you too brain, they’re all traitors, don’t point out their good points._

Well, it _was_ nice that the hitman was finally opening up a bit. This might be the first time he’d actually laughed unabashedly. Even if it was at his expense, well… 

Tsuna hid his smile by shoving the rest of his cake in his mouth. He puffed his cheeks out in irritation, which only made them laugh harder.

_This is nice._

“Ok, now let me tell you about the stables–”

“NO!” He screamed. “ _Anything_ but the stables. Let’s just watch a movie, ok?”

The others watched him between snickers as he ran over to grab the remote to the TV.

“Literally pick anything. Whatever you want. Here. Take it.” He shoved the remote towards them.

They spent a good five minutes after that laughing at him until Kyoko took pity on him and grabbed the remote. They turned their interest towards the TV.

_Operation Diversion: Success_

He pumped a fist silently.

“Don’t think I’m letting you off the hook.” Hana whispered to him teasingly. “They’ll find out one day, mark my words.”

She walked past him into the living room, leaving him standing alone in the kitchen, horrified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tada! Let me know what you liked/disliked in the comments! Also, any theories? What do you think Tsuna's talk with Tsuyoshi was about?


End file.
